HSK 1 · Common Verbs

看见 kànjiàn “to see” in Chinese

Traditional 看見

What 看见 means

  1. to see
  2. to catch sight of

How to say 看见

  • Pitch chart of the fourth tone: falls from high to low, 5 to 1 on the five-level scale看kàn4th tone, falling
  • Pitch chart of the fourth tone: falls from high to low, 5 to 1 on the five-level scale见jiàn4th tone, falling

看见 in a sentence

  1. 我今天看见他们了。

    Wǒ jīntiān kànjiàn tāmen le.

    I saw them today.

    Sentence #10058536 from Tatoeba

  2. 您看见它了吗？

    Nín kànjiàn tā le ma?

    Did you see it?

    Sentence #10182763 from Tatoeba

  3. 我们谁也没看见。

    Wǒmen shéi yě méi kànjiàn.

    We didn’t see anyone.

    Sentence #7771853 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 看见 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 看 (kàn) with each of its parts in a different colour
看kànto see; to look at
  • 手hand · shǒu
  • 目eye · mù

Memory aidA hand 手 shading the eyes 目: to look.

The character 见 (jiàn) with each of its parts in a different colour
见jiànto see
  • 冂down box · jiōng
  • 儿legs · ér

Memory aidSimplified from 見: a big eye 目 on top of a person 儿: to see.

How to write 看见

看 9 strokes · 见 4 strokes

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

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

Words related to 看见

Words with 看

看kàn · to look看病kànbìng · to visit a doctor好看hǎokàn · good-looking看来kànlái · it seems难看nánkàn · ugly看法kànfǎ · way of looking at a thing看望kànwàng · to visit看不起kànbuqǐ · to look down upon看待kàndài · to regard

Words with 见

再见zàijiàn · goodbye听见tīngjiàn · to hear见jiàn · to see见面jiànmiàn · meet/see somebody见到jiàndào · to see不见bújiàn · to be missing遇见yùjiàn · to meet (by chance)常见chángjiàn · common意见yìjiàn · idea可见kějiàn · it can clearly be seen (that this is the case)

More words: Common Verbs

叫jiào · to be called没有méiyǒu · not to have是shì · to be下雨xiàyǔ · to rain有yǒu · to have阻挠zǔnáo · to obstruct遵循zūnxún · to follow作废zuòfèi · to become invalid

FAQs

看见 (kànjiàn) means “to see” or “to catch sight of”. It is an HSK 1 word, so it is one of the words learners meet early.
Say it kànjiàn: kàn with a 4th tone, then jiàn 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, 看见 is written 看見. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type kanjian with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 看见 from the suggestions. Typing kanjian into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
看见 is an HSK 1 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.