HSK 1 · Pronouns

你 nǐ “you” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 你 means

  1. you
  2. you (informal, as opposed to courteous 您)

How to say 你

  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale你nǐ3rd tone, dipping

你 in a sentence

  1. 你能告诉我这是什么吗？

    Nǐ néng gàosu wǒ zhè shì shénme ma?

    Can you tell me what this is?

    Sentence #333977 from Tatoeba

  2. 你的衣服是什么颜色的？

    Nǐ de yīfu shì shénme yánsè de?

    What colour are your clothes?

    Sentence #3565125 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 为什么你不给他打电话？

    Wèishénme nǐ bù gěi tā dǎ diànhuà?

    Why don’t you call him?

    Sentence #10192248 from Tatoeba

How 你 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 你 (nǐ) with each of its parts in a different colour
你nǐyou
  • 亻person form of 人 · rén
  • 尔you · ěr

Memory aidThe old word for “you”, 尔, with a person 亻 beside it.

How to write 你

你 7 strokes

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

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

Words related to 你

Words with 你

你们nǐmen · you (plural)你好nǐ hǎo · hello

More words: Pronouns

我wǒ · I他tā · he她tā · she我们wǒmen · we这zhè · this它tā · it每měi · every大家dàjiā · everyone

FAQs

你 (nǐ) means “you” or “you (informal, as opposed to courteous 您)”. It is an HSK 1 word, so it is one of the words learners meet early.
Say it nǐ: nǐ with a 3rd tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 你 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type ni with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 你 from the suggestions. Typing ni into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
你 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.