HSK 6 · Function Words

艘 sōu “measure word for boats and ships” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 艘 means

  1. measure word for boats and ships
  2. classifier for ships

How to say 艘

  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale艘sōu1st tone, high and level

艘 in a sentence

  1. 我想要一艘船。

    Wǒ xiǎngyào yì sōu chuán.

    I want a boat.

    Sentence #8696251 from Tatoeba

  2. 船上有多少艘救生艇？

    Chuán shàng yǒu duōshǎo sōu jiùshēngtǐng?

    How many lifeboats are there on the ship?

    Sentence #13158383 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 这艘船太大，没法通过运河。

    Zhè sōu chuán tài dà, méifǎ tōngguò yùnhé.

    This ship is too big to pass through the canal.

    Sentence #9958606 from Tatoeba

How 艘 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 艘 (sōu) with each of its parts in a different colour
艘sōuclassifier for ships
  • 舟boat · zhōuMeaning part
  • 叟old man · sǒuSound part

舟 hints at the meaning (boat); 叟 (sǒu) hints at the sound. Compare it with sōu.

How to write 艘

艘 15 strokes

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

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

Words related to 艘

More words: Function Words & Grammar

啥shá · what (informal)尚且shàngqiě · even势必shìbì · bound to束shù · bunch索性suǒxìng · might as well倘若tǎngruò · if特意tèyì · specially统统tǒngtǒng · all

FAQs

艘 (sōu) means “measure word for boats and ships” or “classifier for ships”. It is an HSK 6 word.
Say it sōu: sōu with a 1st tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 艘 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type sou with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 艘 from the suggestions. Typing sou into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
艘 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.