HSK 5 · Work

合同 hétong “(business) contract” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 合同 means

  1. (business) contract
  2. contract
  3. agreement

Measure word 份 fèn · 一份合同 yí fèn hétong

How to say 合同

  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale合hé2nd tone, rising
  • Pitch chart of the neutral tone: short and light, with no contour of its own同tongneutral tone, light and short

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

合同 in a sentence

  1. 合同已经到手了，那就出去庆祝一下吧。

    Hétong yǐjīng dàoshǒu le, nà jiù chūqù qìngzhù yíxià ba.

    The contract’s in the bag, so let’s go out and celebrate.

    Sentence #332490 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 他们的合同在这个月底到期。

    Tāmen de hétong zài zhè ge yuèdǐ dàoqī.

    Their contract expires at the end of this month.

    Sentence #332799 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 我跟公司签了一份三年的合同。

    Wǒ gēn gōngsī qiān le yí fèn sān nián de hétong.

    I signed a three-year contract with the company.

    Sentence #4731437 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 合同 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 合 (hé) with each of its parts in a different colour
合héto close
  • 亼to assemble · jí
  • 口mouth · kǒu
The character 同 (tóng) with each of its parts in a different colour
同tónglikelight in 合同
  • 凡any · fán
  • 口mouth · kǒu

Memory aidPicture everyone 凡 speaking with one mouth 口: the same, together.

How to write 合同

合 6 strokes · 同 6 strokes

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

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

Words related to 合同

Words with 合

符合fúhé · in keeping with适合shìhé · to fit合格hégé · to meet the standard required合适héshì · suitable合影héyǐng · to take a joint photo集合jíhé · to gather结合jiéhé · to combine联合liánhé · to combine配合pèihé · to cooperate组合zǔhé · to assemble

Words with 同

同学tóngxué · classmate同事tóngshì · colleague同意tóngyì · agree不同bùtóng · different同时tóngshí · at the same time相同xiāngtóng · the same同情tóngqíng · to sympathise with共同gòngtóng · common同样tóngyàng · likewise胡同hútòng · lane

More words: Work & Career

改革gǎigé · reform工程师gōngchéngshī · engineer工人gōngrén · worker工业gōngyè · industry合作hézuò · to cooperate兼职jiānzhí · part-time job会计kuàijì · accountant简历jiǎnlì · curriculum vitae (CV)

FAQs

合同 (hétong) means “(business) contract” or “contract”. It is an HSK 5 word.
Say it hétong: hé with a 2nd tone, then tong with a neutral tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 合同 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Use 份 (fèn). For example, one (business) contract is 一份合同 (yí fèn hétong).
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type hetong with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 合同 from the suggestions. Typing hetong into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
合同 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.