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Mythic Mandarin

一下子 (yī xià zi): meaning and stroke order

一下子 (yī xià zi) means in a short while, all at once, all of a sudden.

一下子

Simplified
一下子
Traditional
一下子 (same form)
Pinyin
yī xià zi

Stroke order of 一下子

一

  • yī one; single
  • 1 stroke

Stroke by stroke

下

  • xià down; downwards
  • 3 strokes

Stroke by stroke

子

  • zǐ son; child
  • zi noun suffix, as in 椅子[yi3 zi5] "chair"
  • 3 strokes

Stroke by stroke

Meaning of 一下子

  1. yī xià zi
    • in a short while
    • all at once
    • all of a sudden

Radicals of the characters

一
Radical 一 (Kangxi radical 1) · 1 stroke
下
Radical 一 (Kangxi radical 1) · 3 strokes · 一 on top, 卜 below
子
Radical 子 (Kangxi radical 39) · 3 strokes · built from 了 and 一

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.

一下子 in our stories

Preview version — Chinese review in progress.

  • 罗丹一下子紧张了，准备好的话一句也想不起来了。

    Luó Dān yíxiàzi jǐnzhāng le zhǔnbèi hǎo de huà yí jù yě xiǎng bu qǐlái le

    Luo Dan suddenly gets nervous and can't remember a single word she prepared.

    From the story The honest answer HSK 3

  • 没想到，这个城里来的老师投篮竟然比他们都准，孩子们一下子围了过来。

    méi xiǎngdào zhè gè chéngli lái de lǎoshī tóulán jìngrán bǐ tāmen dōu zhǔn háizimen yíxiàzi wéi le guòlai

    To their surprise, this teacher from the city was a better shot than all of them, and the children instantly crowded round.

    From the story English on the basketball court HSK 5

  • 甄太太的脸一下子白了。半个小时以后，她承认：项链早就被她卖了，她想让保险公司赔钱。

    Zhēn tàitai de liǎn yíxiàzi bái le bàn gè xiǎoshí yǐhòu tā chéngrèn xiàngliàn zǎo jiù bèi tā mài le tā xiǎng ràng bǎoxiǎn gōngsī péi qián

    Mrs Zhen turned white. Half an hour later she admitted that she had sold the necklace long ago and wanted the insurance company to pay out.

    From the story The dry floor HSK 6

Stories using 一下子

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).