HSK 6 · Society

监狱 jiānyù “prison” in Chinese

Traditional 監獄

What 监狱 means

  1. prison
  2. jail

How to say 监狱

  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale监jiān1st tone, high and level
  • Pitch chart of the fourth tone: falls from high to low, 5 to 1 on the five-level scale狱yù4th tone, falling

监狱 in a sentence

  1. 你去过监狱吗？

    Nǐ qùguo jiānyù ma?

    Have you ever been to prison?

    Sentence #8686687 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 我不会那样做的，因为我不想进监狱。

    Wǒ bú huì nàyàng zuò de, yīnwèi wǒ bù xiǎng jìn jiānyù.

    I won’t do that, because I don’t want to go to prison.

    Sentence #10317037 from Tatoeba · converted to simplified characters · translation adapted

  3. 你在监狱里呆了多久？

    Nǐ zài jiānyù lǐ dāi le duōjiǔ?

    How long were you in prison?

    Sentence #5660519 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 监狱 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 监 (jiān) drawn as one shape
监jiānto supervise

监 is a single shape of 10 strokes. Learn it whole, then watch its stroke order below.

The character 狱 (yù) with each of its parts in a different colour
狱yùprison
  • 犭dog form of 犬 · quǎn
  • 讠speech form of 言 · yán
  • 犬dog · quǎn

How to write 监狱

监 10 strokes · 狱 9 strokes

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

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

Words related to 监狱

Words with 监

监视jiānshì · to monitor监督jiāndū · to supervise

More words: Society & Law

会晤huìwù · to meet剪彩jiǎncǎi · to cut the ribbon (at an opening ceremony)间谍jiàndié · spy将军jiāngjūn · general (military rank)阶层jiēcéng · social class解放jiěfàng · to liberate机构jīgòu · organisation忌讳jìhuì · taboo

FAQs

监狱 (jiānyù) means “prison” or “jail”. It is an HSK 6 word.
Say it jiānyù: jiān with a 1st tone, then yù with a 4th 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, 监狱 is written 監獄. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type jianyu with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 监狱 from the suggestions. Typing jianyu into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
监狱 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.