HSK 3 · Verbs

刷牙 shuāyá “brush one’s teeth” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 刷牙 means

  1. brush one’s teeth

How to say 刷牙

  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale刷shuā1st tone, high and level
  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale牙yá2nd tone, rising

刷牙 in a sentence

  1. 昨天晚上,我没刷牙就去睡觉了。

    Zuótiān wǎnshang, wǒ méi shuāyá jiù qù shuìjiào le.

    Last night, I went to bed without brushing my teeth.

    Sentence #4265198 from Tatoeba

  2. 上床睡觉前要刷牙。

    Shàngchuáng shuìjiào qián yào shuāyá.

    Brush your teeth before you go to bed.

    Sentence #1361949 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 别忘了刷牙。

    Bié wàng le shuāyá.

    Don’t forget to brush your teeth.

    Sentence #4265177 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 刷牙 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 刷 (shuā) with each of its parts in a different colour
刷shuāa brush
  • 尸corpse · shī
  • 巾napkin · jīn
  • 刂knife form of 刀 · dāo

Memory aidPicture a cloth 巾 and a blade 刂 used to scrape and scrub something clean: to brush.

The character 牙 (yá) drawn as one shape
牙yátooth

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

Memory aidDrawn from upper and lower teeth meeting: tooth.

How to write 刷牙

刷 8 strokes · 牙 4 strokes

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

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

Words related to 刷牙

Words with 刷

Words with 牙

More words: Common Verbs

FAQs

刷牙 (shuāyá) means “brush one’s teeth”. It is an HSK 3 word.
Say it shuāyá: shuā with a 1st tone, then yá with a 2nd tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 刷牙 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type shuaya with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 刷牙 from the suggestions. Typing shuaya into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
刷牙 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.