HSK 2 · Adjectives

便宜 piányi “cheap” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 便宜 means

  1. cheap
  2. inexpensive
  3. a petty advantage
  4. to let sb off lightly

How to say 便宜

  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale便pián2nd tone, rising
  • Pitch chart of the neutral tone: short and light, with no contour of its own宜yineutral tone, light and short

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

便宜 in a sentence

  1. 我多买一些，可以便宜点吗？

    Wǒ duō mǎi yìxiē, kěyǐ piányi diǎn ma?

    If I buy more, can I get them cheaper?

    Sentence #420736 from Tatoeba

  2. 大家说这家饭馆儿的菜又好吃又便宜。

    Dàjiā shuō zhè jiā fànguǎnr de cài yòu hǎochī yòu piányi.

    Everyone says the food at this restaurant is tasty and cheap.

    Sentence #395917 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 哇！真便宜啊！

    Wa! Zhēn piányi a!

    Wow! That’s cheap!

    Sentence #422976 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 便宜 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 便 (pián) with each of its parts in a different colour
便pián
  • 亻person form of 人 · rén
  • 更more · gēng
The character 宜 (yí) with each of its parts in a different colour
宜yíproperlight in 便宜
  • 宀roof · mián
  • 且moreover · qiě

How to write 便宜

便 9 strokes · 宜 8 strokes

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

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

Words related to 便宜

Words with 便

方便fāngbiàn · convenient方便面fāngbiànmiàn · instant noodles顺便shùnbiàn · conveniently随便suíbiàn · as one wishes便biàn · then便利biànlì · convenient便条biàntiáo · informal note便于biànyú · easy to即便jíbiàn · even if以便yǐbiàn · so that

Words with 宜

适宜shìyí · suitable

More words: Adjectives

高gāo · tall远yuǎn · far近jìn · near贵guì · expensive黑hēi · black白bái · white红hóng · red新xīn · new

FAQs

便宜 (piányi) means “cheap” or “inexpensive”. It is an HSK 2 word, so it is one of the words learners meet early.
Say it piányi: pián with a 2nd tone, then yi with a neutral tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 便宜 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type pianyi with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 便宜 from the suggestions. Typing pianyi into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
便宜 is an HSK 2 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.