HSK 3 · Adjectives

蓝 lán “blue” in Chinese

Traditional 藍

What 蓝 means

  1. blue
  2. indigo plant

How to say 蓝

  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale蓝lán2nd tone, rising

蓝 in a sentence

  1. 为什么天是蓝的？

    Wèishénme tiān shì lán de?

    Why is the sky blue?

    Sentence #812329 from Tatoeba

  2. 你喜欢蓝色的还是红色的？

    Nǐ xǐhuan lánsè de háishi hóngsè de?

    Do you prefer the blue one or the red one?

    Sentence #813330 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 她穿了一件蓝色大衣。

    Tā chuān le yí jiàn lánsè dàyī.

    She was wearing a blue coat.

    Sentence #423409 from Tatoeba

How 蓝 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 蓝 (lán) with each of its parts in a different colour
蓝lánblue
  • 艹grass form of 艸 · cǎoMeaning part
  • 监to supervise · jiānSound part

艹 hints at the meaning (grass); 监 (jiān) hints at the sound. Compare it with lán.

How to write 蓝

蓝 13 strokes

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

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

Words related to 蓝

Words with 蓝

蔚蓝wèilán · azure

More words: Adjectives

极jí · an extreme简单jiǎndān · simple旧jiù · old可爱kě'ài · cute老lǎo · old绿lǜ · green满意mǎnyì · satisfied难nán · difficult

FAQs

蓝 (lán) means “blue” or “indigo plant”. It is an HSK 3 word.
Say it lán: lán with a 2nd 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, 蓝 is written 藍. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type lan with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 蓝 from the suggestions. Typing lan into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
蓝 is an HSK 3 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.