HSK 4 · Verbs

堵车 dǔchē “traffic jam” in Chinese

Traditional 堵車

What 堵车 means

  1. traffic jam
  2. (of traffic) to get congested

How to say 堵车

  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale堵dǔ3rd tone, dipping
  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale车chē1st tone, high and level

堵车 in a sentence

  1. 因为堵车，我开会迟到了。

    Yīnwèi dǔchē, wǒ kāihuì chídào le.

    I was late for the meeting because of the traffic.

    Sentence #8775992 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 你现在出门的话，肯定会堵车的。

    Nǐ xiànzài chūmén dehuà, kěndìng huì dǔchē de.

    If you leave now, I’m sure you’ll be caught in a traffic jam.

    Sentence #422986 from Tatoeba · converted to simplified characters · translation adapted

How 堵车 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 堵 (dǔ) with each of its parts in a different colour
堵dǔto block up
  • 土earth · tǔMeaning part
  • 者that which · zhěSound part

土 hints at the meaning (earth); 者 (zhě) hints at the sound. Compare it with dǔ.

The character 车 (chē) with each of its parts in a different colour
车chēcar
  • 七seven · qī
  • 十ten · shí

Memory aidSimplified from 車: a cart seen from above, with its axle and two wheels.

How to write 堵车

堵 11 strokes · 车 4 strokes

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

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

Words related to 堵车

Words with 堵

堵塞dǔsè · to block

Words with 车

车chē · car火车huǒchē · train开车kāichē · to drive a car出租车chūzūchē · taxi车站chēzhàn · rail station打车dǎchē · to take a taxi (in town)火车站huǒchēzhàn · train station公交车gōngjiāochē · public transport vehicle公共汽车gōnggòng qìchē · bus汽车qìchē · car

More words: Common Verbs

当dāng · to act as调查diàochá · investigation掉diào · to fall丢diū · to lose放松fàngsōng · to relax发生fāshēng · to happen发展fāzhǎn · development翻译fānyì · to translate

FAQs

堵车 (dǔchē) means “traffic jam” or “(of traffic) to get congested”. It is an HSK 4 word.
Say it dǔchē: dǔ with a 3rd tone, then chē with a 1st 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, 堵车 is written 堵車. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type duche with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 堵车 from the suggestions. Typing duche into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
堵车 is an HSK 4 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.