HSK 5 · Verbs

鼓舞 gǔwǔ “to inspire” in Chinese

Said as gúwǔ

Same in Traditional

What 鼓舞 means

  1. to inspire
  2. to encourage
  3. to boost (morale)
  4. to hearten

How to say 鼓舞

  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale鼓gǔ3rd tone, dipping
  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale舞wǔ3rd tone, dipping

Said as gúwǔ. When two third tones meet, the first one rises into a second tone. You still write it with two third tones. How tone changes work

鼓舞 in a sentence

  1. 我们有一些令人鼓舞的消息。

    Wǒmen yǒu yìxiē lìngrén gǔwǔ de xiāoxi.

    We have some encouraging news.

    Sentence #10099066 from Tatoeba

  2. 那真令人鼓舞。

    Nà zhēn lìngrén gǔwǔ.

    That’s really encouraging.

    Sentence #10099057 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 鼓舞 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 鼓 (gǔ) with each of its parts in a different colour
鼓gǔdrum
  • 壴drum · zhùMeaning part
  • 支branch · zhīSound part

壴 hints at the meaning (drum); 支 (zhī) hints at the sound. Compare it with gǔ.

The character 舞 (wǔ) with each of its parts in a different colour
舞wǔto dance
  • 無no
  • 舛oppose · chuǎn

How to write 鼓舞

鼓 13 strokes · 舞 14 strokes

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

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

Words related to 鼓舞

Words with 鼓

鼓励gǔlì · to encourage鼓掌gǔzhǎng · to applaud鼓动gǔdòng · to stir up

Words with 舞

跳舞tiàowǔ · to dance舞蹈wǔdǎo · dance

More words: Common Verbs

搞gǎo · to do公开gōngkāi · open贡献gòngxiàn · to contribute构成gòuchéng · to constitute固定gùdìng · to fix拐弯guǎiwān · to go round a curve关闭guānbì · to close滚gǔn · to boil

FAQs

鼓舞 (gǔwǔ) means “to inspire” or “to encourage”. It is an HSK 5 word.
Say it gǔwǔ: gǔ with a 3rd tone, then wǔ with a 3rd tone. In speech it sounds like gúwǔ. When two third tones meet, the first one rises into a second tone. You still write it with two third tones. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 鼓舞 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type guwu with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 鼓舞 from the suggestions. Typing guwu into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
鼓舞 is an HSK 5 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.