HSK 6 · Ideas

俗话 súhuà “common saying” in Chinese

Traditional 俗話

What 俗话 means

  1. common saying
  2. proverb

How to say 俗话

  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale俗sú2nd tone, rising
  • Pitch chart of the fourth tone: falls from high to low, 5 to 1 on the five-level scale话huà4th tone, falling

俗话 in a sentence

  1. 俗话说：邪不压正；可俗话又说：道高一尺，魔高一丈！

    Súhuà shuō: xié bù yā zhèng; kě súhuà yòu shuō: dào gāo yì chǐ, mó gāo yí zhàng!

    As the saying goes, “Good always triumphs over evil”; but another saying goes, “As virtue rises one foot, vice rises ten.”

    Sentence #838077 from Tatoeba · converted to simplified characters · translation adapted

How 俗话 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 俗 (sú) with each of its parts in a different colour
俗súcustom
  • 亻person form of 人 · rénMeaning part
  • 谷valley · gǔSound part

亻 hints at the meaning (person); 谷 (gǔ) hints at the sound. Compare it with sú.

The character 话 (huà) with each of its parts in a different colour
话huàdialect
  • 讠speech form of 言 · yán
  • 舌tongue · shé

Memory aidSpeech 讠 from the tongue 舌: talk, words.

How to write 俗话

俗 9 strokes · 话 8 strokes

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

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

Words related to 俗话

Words with 俗

风俗fēngsú · social custom通俗tōngsú · popular庸俗yōngsú · vulgar习俗xísú · custom

Words with 话

电话diànhuà · telephone打电话dǎ diànhuà · to make a phone call说话shuōhuà · to speak的话dehuà · if (ends a conditional clause)对话duìhuà · dialogue笑话xiàohua · joke普通话pǔtōnghuà · Mandarin废话fèihuà · nonsense实话shíhuà · truth神话shénhuà · legend

More words: Ideas & Concepts

视野shìyě · field of vision实质shízhì · substance手法shǒufǎ · technique思维sīwéi · thinking素质sùzhì · quality特长tècháng · strength天才tiāncái · genius天赋tiānfù · natural talent

FAQs

俗话 (súhuà) means “common saying” or “proverb”. It is an HSK 6 word.
Say it súhuà: sú with a 2nd tone, then huà with a 4th 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, 俗话 is written 俗話. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type suhua with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 俗话 from the suggestions. Typing suhua into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
俗话 is an HSK 6 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.