HSK 4 · Emotions

开心 kāixīn “to feel happy” in Chinese

Traditional 開心

What 开心 means

  1. to feel happy
  2. to rejoice
  3. to have a great time
  4. to make fun of sb

How to say 开心

  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale开kāi1st tone, high and level
  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale心xīn1st tone, high and level

开心 in a sentence

  1. 大家都玩得很开心。

    Dàjiā dōu wán de hěn kāixīn.

    Everyone had a great time.

    Sentence #431619 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 你今天看上去很开心。

    Nǐ jīntiān kànshangqu hěn kāixīn.

    You look happy today.

    Sentence #844114 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 他今天有点不开心。

    Tā jīntiān yǒudiǎn bù kāixīn.

    He’s a bit unhappy today.

    Sentence #3544990 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 开心 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 开 (kāi) with each of its parts in a different colour
开kāito open
  • 一one · yī
  • 廾two hands · gǒng

Memory aidSimplified from 開: two hands lifting the bar of a gate 門: to open.

The character 心 (xīn) drawn as one shape
心xīnheart

心 is a single shape of 4 strokes. Learn it whole, then watch its stroke order below.

Memory aidDrawn from a heart. On the left of a character it is written 忄.

How to write 开心

开 4 strokes · 心 4 strokes

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

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

Words related to 开心

Words with 开

Words with 心

More words: Emotions & Feelings

FAQs

开心 (kāixīn) means “to feel happy” or “to rejoice”. It is an HSK 4 word.
Say it kāixīn: kāi with a 1st tone, then xīn 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, 开心 is written 開心. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type kaixin with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 开心 from the suggestions. Typing kaixin into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
开心 is an HSK 4 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.