HSK 1 · Family

爸爸 bàba “dad” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 爸爸 means

  1. dad
  2. (coll.) father

Measure word 位 wèi · 一位爸爸 yí wèi bàba

How to say 爸爸

  • Pitch chart of the fourth tone: falls from high to low, 5 to 1 on the five-level scale爸bà4th tone, falling
  • Pitch chart of the neutral tone: short and light, with no contour of its own爸baneutral tone, light and short

Grey pinyin is a neutral tone: say it short and light. More on the neutral tone

爸爸 in a sentence

  1. 爸爸给我买了书。

    Bàba gěi wǒ mǎi le shū.

    Dad bought me a book.

    Sentence #4264973 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 他是我的爸爸。

    Tā shì wǒ de bàba.

    He’s my dad.

    Sentence #6051010 from Tatoeba

  3. 爸爸在工作。

    Bàba zài gōngzuò.

    Dad’s working.

    Sentence #10269067 from Tatoeba

How 爸爸 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 爸 (bà) with each of its parts in a different colour
爸bàfather
  • 父father · fùMeaning part
  • 巴to desire · bāSound part

父 hints at the meaning (father); 巴 (bā) hints at the sound. Compare it with bà.

The character 爸 (bà) with each of its parts in a different colour
爸bàfatherlight in 爸爸
  • 父father · fùMeaning part
  • 巴to desire · bāSound part

父 hints at the meaning (father); 巴 (bā) hints at the sound. Compare it with ba.

How to write 爸爸

爸 8 strokes

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

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

Words related to 爸爸

More words: People, Body & Health

妈妈māma · mum儿子érzi · son女儿nǚ'ér · daughter人rén · person肿瘤zhǒngliú · tumour皱纹zhòuwén · wrinkle注射zhùshè · to inject嘴唇zuǐchún · lip

FAQs

爸爸 (bàba) means “dad” or “(coll.) father”. It is an HSK 1 word, so it is one of the words learners meet early.
Say it bàba: bà with a 4th tone, then ba with a neutral tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 爸爸 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Use 位 (wèi). For example, one dad is 一位爸爸 (yí wèi bàba).
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type baba with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 爸爸 from the suggestions. Typing baba into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
爸爸 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.