HSK 3 · Verbs

起飞 qǐfēi “take off in an aeroplane” in Chinese

Traditional 起飛

What 起飞 means

  1. take off in an aeroplane
  2. liftoff
  3. (of an aircraft or rocket) to take off
  4. to lift off
  5. (fig.) (of an enterprise etc) to start to develop rapidly

How to say 起飞

  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale起qǐ3rd tone, dipping
  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale飞fēi1st tone, high and level

起飞 in a sentence

  1. 飞机快要起飞了。

    Fēijī kuàiyào qǐfēi le.

    The plane is about to take off.

    Sentence #8883976 from Tatoeba

  2. 你的飞机什么时候起飞呢?

    Nǐ de fēijī shénme shíhou qǐfēi ne?

    What time does your plane take off?

    Sentence #2221113 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 飞机十分钟前起飞了。

    Fēijī shí fēnzhōng qián qǐfēi le.

    The plane took off ten minutes ago.

    Sentence #10002074 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 起飞 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.

The character 飞 (fēi) drawn as one shape
飞fēito fly

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

Memory aidDrawn from a bird’s wings in flight.

How to write 起飞

起 10 strokes · 飞 3 strokes

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

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

Words related to 起飞

Words with 起

Words with 飞

More words: Common Verbs

FAQs

起飞 (qǐfēi) means “take off in an aeroplane” or “liftoff”. It is an HSK 3 word.
Say it qǐfēi: qǐ with a 3rd tone, then fēi with a 1st 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, 起飞 is written 起飛. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type qifei with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 起飞 from the suggestions. Typing qifei into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
起飞 is an HSK 3 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.