HSK 2 · Adjectives

黑 hēi “black” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 黑 means

  1. black
  2. dark
  3. sinister
  4. secret
  5. shady
More meanings from CC-CEDICT
  • illegal
  • short name for Heilongjiang 黑龙江

How to say 黑

  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale黑hēi1st tone, high and level

黑 in a sentence

  1. 她戴着黑帽子。

    Tā dài zhe hēi màozi.

    She’s wearing a black hat.

    Sentence #348115 from Tatoeba

  2. 那辆车是黑的。

    Nà liàng chē shì hēi de.

    That car is black.

    Sentence #9991906 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 黑 can also mean “dark”

    天快黑了。

    Tiān kuài hēi le.

    It will be dark soon.

    Sentence #3060526 from Tatoeba

How 黑 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 黑 (hēi) drawn as one shape
黑hēiblack

黑 is a single shape of 12 strokes. Learn it whole, then watch its stroke order below.

How to write 黑

黑 12 strokes

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

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

Words related to 黑

Words with 黑

黑色hēisè · black黑板hēibǎn · blackboard乌黑wūhēi · jet-black

More words: Adjectives

远yuǎn · far近jìn · near贵guì · expensive便宜piányi · cheap白bái · white红hóng · red新xīn · new忙máng · busy

FAQs

黑 (hēi) means “black” or “dark”. It is an HSK 2 word, so it is one of the words learners meet early.
Say it hēi: hēi with a 1st tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 黑 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type hei with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 黑 from the suggestions. Typing hei into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
黑 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.