HSK 3 · Nature

太阳 tàiyáng “the sun” in Chinese

Traditional 太陽

What 太阳 means

  1. the sun
  2. sunlight
  3. sunshine
  4. temple (on the side of the human head) (abbr. for 太阳穴)

How to say 太阳

  • Pitch chart of the fourth tone: falls from high to low, 5 to 1 on the five-level scale太tài4th tone, falling
  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale阳yáng2nd tone, rising

太阳 in a sentence

  1. 地球比太阳小。

    Dìqiú bǐ tàiyáng xiǎo.

    The Earth is smaller than the Sun.

    Sentence #340652 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 太阳露出来了。

    Tàiyáng lù chūlai le.

    The sun has come out.

    Sentence #1746038 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 我们走的时候下着雨，到的时候有太阳。

    Wǒmen zǒu de shíhou xià zhe yǔ, dào de shíhou yǒu tàiyáng.

    It was raining when we left; it was sunny when we arrived.

    Sentence #389827 from Tatoeba

How 太阳 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 太 (tài) with each of its parts in a different colour
太tàihighest
  • 大big · dà
  • 丶dot · zhǔ

Memory aidBig 大 with one more dot: even bigger, too much.

The character 阳 (yáng) with each of its parts in a different colour
阳yángpositive
  • 阝place
  • 日sun · rì

How to write 太阳

太 4 strokes · 阳 6 strokes

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

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

Words related to 太阳

Words with 太

太tài · too太太tàitai · wife太极拳tàijíquán · tai chi (taijiquan)太空tàikōng · outer space

Words with 阳

阳光yángguāng · sunshine阳台yángtái · balcony夕阳xīyáng · setting sun

More words: Nature, Animals & Weather

环境huánjìng · environment马mǎ · horse鸟niǎo · bird树shù · tree熊猫xióngmāo · panda月亮yuèliang · the moon山shān · mountain牛niú · cow

FAQs

太阳 (tàiyáng) means “the sun” or “sunlight”. It is an HSK 3 word.
Say it tàiyáng: tài with a 4th tone, then yáng 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, 太阳 is written 太陽. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type taiyang with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 太阳 from the suggestions. Typing taiyang into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
太阳 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.