HSK 2 · Common Verbs

玩 wán “to play” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 玩 means

  1. to play
  2. to have fun
  3. to trifle with
  4. toy
  5. sth used for amusement
More meanings from CC-CEDICT
  • curio or antique

How to say 玩

  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale玩wán2nd tone, rising

玩 in a sentence

  1. 大家都玩得很开心。

    Dàjiā dōu wán de hěn kāixīn.

    Everyone had a great time.

    Sentence #431619 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 我在花园里玩。

    Wǒ zài huāyuán lǐ wán.

    I’m playing in the garden.

    Sentence #2785224 from Tatoeba

  3. 我不想再玩了。

    Wǒ bù xiǎng zài wán le.

    I don’t want to play anymore.

    Sentence #4517860 from Tatoeba

How 玩 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 玩 (wán) with each of its parts in a different colour
玩wánto play
  • 王king · wángMeaning part
  • 元first · yuánSound part

王 hints at the meaning (king); 元 (yuán) hints at the sound. Compare it with wán.

Memory aid王 here is jade 玉: turning a piece of jade over in your hands. 元 (yuán) gives the sound: to play.

How to write 玩

玩 8 strokes

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

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

Words related to 玩

Words with 玩

好玩儿hǎowánr · amusing开玩笑kāiwánxiào · to play a joke玩具wánjù · plaything玩弄wánnòng · to play with玩意儿wányìr · thing

More words: Common Verbs

找zhǎo · to look for帮助bāngzhù · to help介绍jièshào · to introduce等děng · to wait进jìn · to enter出chū · to go out给gěi · to give让ràng · to let

FAQs

玩 (wán) means “to play” or “to have fun”. It is an HSK 2 word, so it is one of the words learners meet early.
Say it wán: wán with a 2nd tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 玩 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type wan with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 玩 from the suggestions. Typing wan into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
玩 is an HSK 2 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.