HSK 6 · Ideas

天才 tiāncái “genius” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 天才 means

  1. genius
  2. talent
  3. gifted
  4. gift
  5. talented

How to say 天才

  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale天tiān1st tone, high and level
  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale才cái2nd tone, rising

天才 in a sentence

  1. 她儿子是个天才。

    Tā érzi shì ge tiāncái.

    Her son is a genius.

    Sentence #389357 from Tatoeba

  2. 她是个数学天才。

    Tā shì ge shùxué tiāncái.

    She’s a maths genius.

    Sentence #787328 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 他幻想自己是个天才。

    Tā huànxiǎng zìjǐ shì ge tiāncái.

    He fantasised that he was a genius.

    Sentence #886528 from Tatoeba · converted to simplified characters · translation adapted

How 天才 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 天 (tiān) with each of its parts in a different colour
天tiānday
  • 一one · yī
  • 大big · dà

Memory aidA person 大 with the sky 一 above: sky, heaven, day.

The character 才 (cái) drawn as one shape
才cáiability; talent

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

How to write 天才

天 4 strokes · 才 3 strokes

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

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

Words related to 天才

Words with 天

Words with 才

More words: Ideas & Concepts

FAQs

天才 (tiāncái) means “genius” or “talent”. It is an HSK 6 word.
Say it tiāncái: tiān with a 1st tone, then cái with a 2nd tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 天才 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type tiancai with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 天才 from the suggestions. Typing tiancai into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
天才 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.