HSK 6 · Places

故乡 gùxiāng “hometown” in Chinese

Traditional 故鄉

What 故乡 means

  1. hometown
  2. native place
  3. home
  4. homeland

Measure word 个 gè · 一个故乡 yí ge gùxiāng

How to say 故乡

  • Pitch chart of the fourth tone: falls from high to low, 5 to 1 on the five-level scale故gù4th tone, falling
  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale乡xiāng1st tone, high and level

故乡 in a sentence

  1. 我突然很想念我的故乡。

    Wǒ tūrán hěn xiǎngniàn wǒ de gùxiāng.

    I suddenly really miss my hometown.

    Sentence #9989956 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 不由得想起了故乡。

    Bùyóude xiǎngqǐ le gùxiāng.

    I couldn’t help thinking of my hometown.

    Sentence #2394350 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 故乡 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 故 (gù) with each of its parts in a different colour
故gùhappening
  • 古old · gǔSound part
  • 攵tap form of 攴 · pūMeaning part

攵 hints at the meaning (tap); 古 (gǔ) hints at the sound. Compare it with gù.

The character 乡 (xiāng) drawn as one shape
乡xiāngcountry or countryside

乡 is a single shape of 3 strokes. Learn it whole, then watch its stroke order below.

How to write 故乡

故 9 strokes · 乡 3 strokes

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

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

Words related to 故乡

Words with 故

故事gùshi · story故意gùyì · deliberately事故shìgù · accident故障gùzhàng · fault变故biàngù · misfortune缘故yuángù · reason

Words with 乡

家乡jiāxiāng · hometown乡镇xiāngzhèn · towns and villages

More words: Places & Geography

坟墓fénmù · grave港湾gǎngwān · harbour跟前gēnqián · in front of宫殿gōngdiàn · palace海拔hǎibá · height above sea level海滨hǎibīn · seaside角落jiǎoluò · corner基地jīdì · base (of operations)

FAQs

故乡 (gùxiāng) means “hometown” or “native place”. It is an HSK 6 word.
Say it gùxiāng: gù with a 4th tone, then xiāng with a 1st tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
In Traditional characters, used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, 故乡 is written 故鄉. The pronunciation is the same.
Use 个 (gè). For example, one hometown is 一个故乡 (yí ge gùxiāng).
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type guxiang with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 故乡 from the suggestions. Typing guxiang into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
故乡 is an HSK 6 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.