HSK 1 · Adjectives

好 hǎo “good” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 好 means

  1. good
  2. appropriate
  3. proper
  4. all right!
  5. (before a verb) easy to
More meanings from CC-CEDICT
  • (before a verb) good to
  • (before an adjective for exclamatory effect) so

How to say 好

  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale好hǎo3rd tone, dipping

好 in a sentence

  1. 你的自行车比我的好。

    Nǐ de zìxíngchē bǐ wǒ de hǎo.

    Your bike is better than mine.

    Sentence #868428 from Tatoeba

  2. 他不知道说什么好。

    Tā bù zhīdao shuō shénme hǎo.

    He did not know what to say.

    Sentence #1450499 from Tatoeba

  3. “你怎么样？”“我很好，谢谢。”

    "Nǐ zěnmeyàng?" "Wǒ hěn hǎo, xièxie."

    “How are you?” “I’m fine, thank you.”

    Sentence #345986 from Tatoeba

How 好 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 好 (hǎo) with each of its parts in a different colour
好hǎogood
  • 女woman · nǚ
  • 子child · zǐ

Memory aidA woman 女 with her child 子: something good.

How to write 好

好 6 strokes

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

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

Words related to 好

Words with 好

你好nǐ hǎo · hello好看hǎokàn · good-looking好听hǎotīng · pleasant to hear好玩儿hǎowánr · amusing好吃hǎochī · delicious不好意思bùhǎoyìsi · to feel embarrassed爱好àihào · hobby好多hǎoduō · a lot of好久hǎojiǔ · a long time好像hǎoxiàng · as if

More words: Adjectives

大dà · big小xiǎo · small多duō · many少shǎo · few滋润zīrùn · moist自主zìzhǔ · independent纵横zònghéng · in all directions棕色zōngsè · brown

FAQs

好 (hǎo) means “good” or “appropriate”. It is an HSK 1 word, so it is one of the words learners meet early.
Say it hǎo: hǎo with a 3rd tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 好 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type hao with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 好 from the suggestions. Typing hao into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
好 is an HSK 1 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.