HSK 6 · Adjectives

斯文 sīwen “refined” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 斯文 means

  1. refined
  2. gentle
  3. cultured
  4. intellectual
  5. polite

How to say 斯文

  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale斯sī1st tone, high and level
  • Pitch chart of the neutral tone: short and light, with no contour of its own文wenneutral tone, light and short

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

斯文 in a sentence

  1. 他说话很斯文。

    Tā shuōhuà hěn sīwen.

    He speaks in a very refined way.

    Sentence by WillyChina

  2. 别看他外表斯文，其实很幽默。

    Bié kàn tā wàibiǎo sīwen, qíshí hěn yōumò.

    He may look prim and proper, but he’s actually very funny.

    Sentence by WillyChina

How 斯文 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 斯 (sī) with each of its parts in a different colour
斯sīthis
  • 其his · qí
  • 斤axe · jīn
The character 文 (wén) with each of its parts in a different colour
文wenlanguage
  • 亠lid · tóu
  • 乂to govern · yì

Memory aidDrawn from a person with a pattern on the chest. It came to mean writing and culture.

How to write 斯文

斯 12 strokes · 文 4 strokes

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

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

Words related to 斯文

Words with 文

中文Zhōngwén · Chinese language文化wénhuà · culture课文kèwén · text (of a lesson)文章wénzhāng · article文明wénmíng · civilised论文lùnwén · paper文字wénzì · writing作文zuòwén · to write an essay文件wénjiàn · document文学wénxué · literature

More words: Adjectives

首要shǒuyào · foremost竖shù · vertical爽快shuǎngkuài · frank书面shūmiàn · written肆无忌惮sìwújìdàn · unrestrained私自sīzì · privately随意suíyì · as one likes坦白tǎnbái · frank

FAQs

斯文 (sīwen) means “refined” or “gentle”. It is an HSK 6 word.
Say it sīwen: sī with a 1st tone, then wen with a neutral tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 斯文 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type siwen with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 斯文 from the suggestions. Typing siwen into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
斯文 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 written by WillyChina. Character parts and stroke order from Make Me a Hanzi.