HSK 3.0 Level 3 · Everyday Verbs

起 qǐ “to rise” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 起 means

  1. to rise
  2. to get up
  3. (m.w. for incidents, cases)
  4. to raise
  5. to set out
More meanings from CC-CEDICT
  • to start
  • to appear

How to say 起

  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale起qǐ3rd tone, dipping

起 in a sentence

  1. 你女儿起了吗？

    Nǐ nǚ'ér qǐ le ma?

    Is your daughter up yet?

    Sentence #10966847 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 起 can also mean “to give (a name)”, as in 起名字

    你给你儿子起什么名字？

    Nǐ gěi nǐ érzi qǐ shénme míngzi?

    What did you name your son?

    Sentence #5983655 from Tatoeba

How 起 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 起 (qǐ) with each of its parts in a different colour
起qǐto rise
  • 走walk · zǒuMeaning part
  • 己self · jǐSound part

走 hints at the meaning (walk); 己 (jǐ) hints at the sound. Compare it with qǐ.

How to write 起

起 10 strokes

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

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

Words related to 起

Words with 起

对不起duìbuqǐ · sorry一起yìqǐ · together起床qǐchuáng · to get up起飞qǐfēi · take off in an aeroplane起来qǐlai · beginning or continuing an action引起yǐnqǐ · to give rise to看不起kànbuqǐ · to look down upon了不起liǎobuqǐ · amazing起初qǐchū · at first起草qǐcǎo · to draft

More words: Everyday Verbs

踢tī · to kick忘wàng · to forget下来xiàlai · to come down游yóu · to swim得到dédào · to get受shòu · to receive跳tiào · to jump收到shōudào · to receive

FAQs

起 (qǐ) means “to rise” or “to get up”. It is an HSK 3.0 Level 3 word.
Say it qǐ: qǐ with a 3rd tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 起 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type qi with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 起 from the suggestions. Typing qi into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
起 is an HSK 3.0 Level 3 word in the official 2021 syllabus, and it is on our HSK 3.0 Band 4 word list. It is not on the older 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.