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Mythic Mandarin

东西 (dōng xī): meaning and stroke order

东西 (dōng xī) means east and west, thing, stuff, person, 个,件.

东西

Simplified
东西
Traditional
東西
Pinyin
dōng xī · dōng xi

Stroke order of 东西

东

  • Dōng surname Dong
  • dōng east; host (i.e. sitting on east side of guest)
  • 5 strokes
  • Traditional form: 東

Stroke by stroke

西

  • Xī the West; abbr. for Spain 西班牙[Xi1 ban1 ya2]
  • xī west
  • 6 strokes

Stroke by stroke

Meaning of 东西

  1. dōng xī Traditional 東西
    • east and west
  2. dōng xi Traditional 東西
    • thing
    • stuff
    • person
    • CL:個|个[ge4],件[jian4]

Radicals of the characters

东
Radical 一 (Kangxi radical 1) · 5 strokes
西
Radical 襾 (Kangxi radical 146) · 6 strokes · 一 on top, 𠁤 below

Radicals and stroke counts: Unicode Unihan database. Structure: the shapes a character is written with (BabelStone IDS), not necessarily parts that carry meaning or sound.

东西 in our stories

Preview version — Chinese review in progress.

  • 新年的时候，年来吃东西。

    xīnnián de shíhou Nián lái chī dōngxi

    At New Year Nian came to eat.

    From the story The story of Nian HSK 1

  • 医生说他不用吃药，这两天多喝热水，别吃冷的东西。

    yīshēng shuō tā búyòng chī yào zhè liǎng tiān duō hē rè shuǐ bié chī lěng de dōngxi

    The doctor says he doesn't need medicine: for the next two days he should drink plenty of hot water and not eat anything cold.

    From the story Ice-cold watermelon HSK 2

  • 火车上人很多，大家都带了很多东西。

    huǒchē shàng rén hěn duō dàjiā dōu dài le hěn duō dōngxi

    The train is crowded, and everyone has brought lots of things.

    From the story New Year at Grandma and Grandpa's HSK 2

Where you learn it

东西 appears in the vocabulary of our HSK 1 learning material. This is a Mythic Mandarin word list, not an official HSK list.

Stories using 东西

Dictionary data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Stroke data: Hanzi Writer data, derived from Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License). Animation: Hanzi Writer (MIT licence). Radicals and stroke counts: Unicode Unihan (Unicode License v3).