HSK 1 · Directions

里 lǐ “inside” in Chinese

Traditional 裡

What 里 means

  1. inside, in
  2. lining
  3. interior
  4. internal

How to say 里

  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale里lǐ3rd tone, dipping

里 in a sentence

  1. 我们在学校里。

    Wǒmen zài xuéxiào lǐ.

    We are in school.

    Sentence #3378111 from Tatoeba

  2. 你认识照片里的男人吗？

    Nǐ rènshi zhàopiàn lǐ de nánrén ma?

    Do you know the man in the photo?

    Sentence #437939 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 我的学校里有一百个人。

    Wǒ de xuéxiào lǐ yǒu yì bǎi ge rén.

    There are one hundred people in my school.

    Sentence #3890918 from Tatoeba

How 里 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 里 (lǐ) with each of its parts in a different colour
里lǐlining
  • 田field · tián
  • 土earth · tǔ

Memory aidFields 田 and earth 土: a village. As a simplified character it also stands for 裏, “inside”.

How to write 里

里 7 strokes

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

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

Words related to 里

Words with 里

那里nàli · there这里zhèlǐ · here哪里nǎlǐ · where?里面lǐmiàn · inside心里xīnlǐ · in one’s heart公里gōnglǐ · kilometre里程碑lǐchéngbēi · milestone

More words: Places & Directions

商店shāngdiàn · shop医院yīyuàn · hospital上shàng · up下xià · down前面qiánmiàn · front后面hòumiàn · back宾馆bīnguǎn · hotel房间fángjiān · room

FAQs

里 (lǐ) means “inside, in” or “lining”. It is an HSK 1 word, so it is one of the words learners meet early.
Say it lǐ: lǐ with a 3rd 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, 里 is written 裡. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type li with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 里 from the suggestions. Typing li into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
里 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.