HSK 1 · Particles

太 tài “too” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 太 means

  1. too, very
  2. highest
  3. greatest
  4. too (much)
  5. extremely

How to say 太

  • Pitch chart of the fourth tone: falls from high to low, 5 to 1 on the five-level scale太tài4th tone, falling

太 in a sentence

  1. 我不太喜欢数学。

    Wǒ bú tài xǐhuan shùxué.

    I don’t like maths very much.

    Sentence #431614 from Tatoeba

  2. 你想太多了。

    Nǐ xiǎng tài duō le.

    You think too much.

    Sentence #361716 from Tatoeba

  3. 我不太明白他说什么。

    Wǒ bú tài míngbai tā shuō shénme.

    I don’t quite understand what he says.

    Sentence #332655 from Tatoeba

How 太 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 太 (tài) with each of its parts in a different colour
太tàihighest
  • 大big · dà
  • 丶dot · zhǔ

Memory aidBig 大 with one more dot: even bigger, too much.

How to write 太

太 4 strokes

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

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

Words related to 太

Words with 太

太阳tàiyáng · the sun太太tàitai · wife太极拳tàijíquán · tai chi (taijiquan)太空tàikōng · outer space

More words: Particles & Connectors

呢ne · question particle不bù · no都dōu · all很hěn · very和hé · and吧ba · suggestion particle比bǐ · compared to得de · particle linking a verb to how it is done (e.g. 跑得快

FAQs

太 (tài) means “too, very” or “highest”. It is an HSK 1 word, so it is one of the words learners meet early.
Say it tài: tài with a 4th tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 太 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type tai with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 太 from the suggestions. Typing tai into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
太 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.