HSK 6 · Verbs

擅长 shàncháng “to be good at” in Chinese

Traditional 擅長

What 擅长 means

  1. to be good at
  2. to excel in
  3. to be expert in

How to say 擅长

  • Pitch chart of the fourth tone: falls from high to low, 5 to 1 on the five-level scale擅shàn4th tone, falling
  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale长cháng2nd tone, rising

擅长 in a sentence

  1. 她不仅擅长跑步，也擅长唱歌。

    Tā bùjǐn shàncháng pǎobù, yě shàncháng chànggē.

    She’s good not only at running but also at singing.

    Sentence #1565711 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 我不擅长表达自己。

    Wǒ bú shàncháng biǎodá zìjǐ.

    I’m not good at expressing myself.

    Sentence #14021666 from Tatoeba · converted to simplified characters · translation adapted

  3. 你擅长书法吗？

    Nǐ shàncháng shūfǎ ma?

    Are you good at calligraphy?

    Sentence #9989886 from Tatoeba

How 擅长 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 擅 (shàn) with each of its parts in a different colour
擅shànwithout authority
  • 扌hand form of 手 · shǒuMeaning part
  • 亶real · dǎnSound part

扌 hints at the meaning (hand); 亶 (dǎn) hints at the sound. Compare it with shàn.

The character 长 (cháng) drawn as one shape
长chánglong

长 is a single shape of 4 strokes. Learn it whole, then watch its stroke order below.

Memory aidSimplified from 長, drawn from a person with long hair: long (cháng), and to grow (zhǎng).

How to write 擅长

擅 16 strokes · 长 4 strokes

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

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

Words related to 擅长

Words with 擅

擅自shànzì · without permission

Words with 长

长cháng · long校长xiàozhǎng · principal of school长城Chángchéng · the Great Wall长江Cháng Jiāng · Yangtze River长辈zhǎngbèi · elder成长chéngzhǎng · to grow up延长yáncháng · to prolong长途chángtú · long distance生长shēngzhǎng · to grow漫长màncháng · very long

More words: Thinking & Talking

饶恕ráoshù · to forgive认定rèndìng · to be convinced认可rènkě · to approve撒谎sāhuǎng · to lie设想shèxiǎng · to imagine识别shíbié · to identify示意shìyì · to signal疏忽shūhu · to neglect

FAQs

擅长 (shàncháng) means “to be good at” or “to excel in”. It is an HSK 6 word.
Say it shàncháng: shàn with a 4th tone, then cháng with a 2nd 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, 擅长 is written 擅長. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type shanchang with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 擅长 from the suggestions. Typing shanchang into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
擅长 is an HSK 6 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.