HSK 3 · Body

头发 tóufa “hair on the head” in Chinese

Traditional 頭髮

What 头发 means

  1. hair on the head

How to say 头发

  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale头tóu2nd tone, rising
  • Pitch chart of the neutral tone: short and light, with no contour of its own发faneutral tone, light and short

Grey pinyin is a neutral tone: say it short and light. More on the neutral tone

头发 in a sentence

  1. 我爸爸的头发变白了。

    Wǒ bàba de tóufa biàn bái le.

    My dad’s hair has gone white.

    Sentence #8891837 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 他把头发剪短了。

    Tā bǎ tóufa jiǎn duǎn le.

    He’s had his hair cut short.

    Sentence #333115 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 你该剪头发了。

    Nǐ gāi jiǎn tóufa le.

    You need a haircut.

    Sentence #343229 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 头发 is built

Each colour is one part of the character. Parts repeat across thousands of characters, so learning them makes new words easier. See all 214 in our radicals chart.

The character 头 (tóu) with each of its parts in a different colour
头tóuhead
  • ⺀ice form of 冫 · bīng
  • 大big · dàMeaning part

Memory aidSimplified from 頭, where 页 meant “head” and 豆 (dòu) gave the sound.

The character 发 (fā) drawn as one shape
发fāto send outlight in 头发

发 is a single shape of 5 strokes. Learn it whole, then watch its stroke order below.

How to write 头发

头 5 strokes · 发 5 strokes

Watch the order, then press Try writing it and draw each stroke in the grid. Each stroke is checked as you go.

头发 (tóufa) stroke order chart: each stroke of the characters in the order you write them
Stroke order chart for 头发 (tóufa). Red marks the next stroke, so you can copy it onto paper one step at a time.

Words related to 头发

Words with 头

头tóu · head馒头mántou · steamed roll骨头gǔtou · bone石头shítou · stone木头mùtou · wood拳头quántou · fist舌头shétou · tongue口头kǒutóu · oral镜头jìngtóu · camera shot码头mǎtou · dock

Words with 发

发fā · send out发烧fāshāo · have a fever发现fāxiàn · discover发生fāshēng · to happen发展fāzhǎn · development理发lǐfà · to get a haircut出发chūfā · to set off沙发shāfā · sofa发言fāyán · to make a speech启发qǐfā · to inspire

More words: People, Body & Health

口kǒu · mouth脸liǎn · face舒服shūfu · comfortable疼téng · ache腿tuǐ · leg嘴zuǐ · mouth病人bìngrén · patient牙yá · tooth

FAQs

头发 (tóufa) means “hair on the head”. It is an HSK 3 word.
Say it tóufa: tóu with a 2nd tone, then fa with a neutral tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
In Traditional characters, used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, 头发 is written 頭髮. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type toufa with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 头发 from the suggestions. Typing toufa into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
头发 is an HSK 3 word in the HSK 2.0 word lists.

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Sources: meaning and pinyin checked by a native Mandarin teacher against the official HSK lists. Extra meanings from CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Example sentences from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR). Character parts and stroke order from Make Me a Hanzi.