HSK 4 · Adjectives

马虎 mǎhu “careless” in Chinese

Traditional 馬虎

What 马虎 means

  1. careless
  2. sloppy
  3. negligent
  4. skimpy

How to say 马虎

  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale马mǎ3rd tone, dipping
  • Pitch chart of the neutral tone: short and light, with no contour of its own虎huneutral tone, light and short

Grey pinyin is a neutral tone: say it short and light. More on the neutral tone

马虎 in a sentence

  1. 做作业不能马虎。

    Zuò zuòyè bùnéng mǎhu.

    You can’t be careless with your homework.

    Sentence by WillyChina

  2. 他太马虎了，又把钥匙忘在家里了。

    Tā tài mǎhu le, yòu bǎ yàoshi wàng zài jiā li le.

    He’s so careless: he’s left his keys at home again.

    Sentence by WillyChina

How 马虎 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 马 (mǎ) drawn as one shape
马mǎhorse

马 is a single shape of 3 strokes. Learn it whole, then watch its stroke order below.

Memory aidSimplified from 馬, drawn from a horse with its mane and legs.

The character 虎 (hǔ) with each of its parts in a different colour
虎hǔtigerlight in 马虎
  • 虍tiger · hū
  • 几table · jī

How to write 马虎

马 3 strokes · 虎 8 strokes

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

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

Words related to 马虎

Words with 马

马mǎ · horse马上mǎshàng · at once马路mǎlù · road

Words with 虎

老虎lǎohǔ · tiger狼吞虎咽lángtūnhǔyàn · to wolf down (food)

More words: Adjectives

凉快liángkuai · nice and cold流利liúlì · fluent流行liúxíng · popular乱luàn · in confusion or disorder满mǎn · to fill美丽měilì · beautiful耐心nàixīn · to be patient暖和nuǎnhuo · warm

FAQs

马虎 (mǎhu) means “careless” or “sloppy”. It is an HSK 4 word.
Say it mǎhu: mǎ with a 3rd tone, then hu with a neutral 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, 马虎 is written 馬虎. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type mahu with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 马虎 from the suggestions. Typing mahu into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
马虎 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 written by WillyChina. Character parts and stroke order from Make Me a Hanzi.