HSK 6 · Education

文献 wénxiàn “literature” in Chinese

Traditional 文獻

What 文献 means

  1. literature
  2. documents
  3. records
  4. reference material (used in scholarly study)

How to say 文献

  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale文wén2nd tone, rising
  • Pitch chart of the fourth tone: falls from high to low, 5 to 1 on the five-level scale献xiàn4th tone, falling

文献 in a sentence

  1. 你必须每天背一篇古典文献。

    Nǐ bìxū měitiān bèi yì piān gǔdiǎn wénxiàn.

    You must memorise a classical text every day.

    Sentence #9975372 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 文献 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 文 (wén) with each of its parts in a different colour
文wénlanguage
  • 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.

The character 献 (xiàn) with each of its parts in a different colour
献xiànto offer
  • 南south · nāSound part
  • 犬dog · quǎnMeaning part

犬 hints at the meaning (dog); 南 (nā) hints at the sound. Compare it with xiàn.

How to write 文献

文 4 strokes · 献 13 strokes

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

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

Words related to 文献

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

Words with 献

贡献gòngxiàn · to contribute奉献fèngxiàn · to dedicate

More words: Education & Learning

启蒙qǐméng · to enlighten示范shìfàn · to demonstrate师范shīfàn · teacher training文凭wénpíng · diploma心得xīndé · insights学说xuéshuō · theory学位xuéwèi · academic degree熏陶xūntáo · to nurture

FAQs

文献 (wénxiàn) means “literature” or “documents”. It is an HSK 6 word.
Say it wénxiàn: wén with a 2nd tone, then xiàn with a 4th 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, 文献 is written 文獻. The pronunciation is the same.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type wenxian with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 文献 from the suggestions. Typing wenxian into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
文献 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.