HSK 4 · Food

盐 yán “salt” in Chinese

Traditional 鹽

What 盐 means

  1. salt

Measure word 粒 lì · 一粒盐 yí lì yán

How to say 盐

  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale盐yán2nd tone, rising

盐 in a sentence

  1. 别放太多盐。

    Bié fàng tài duō yán.

    Don’t add too much salt.

    Sentence #1324964 from Tatoeba

  2. 他让我把盐递给他。

    Tā ràng wǒ bǎ yán dìgěi tā.

    He asked me to pass him the salt.

    Sentence #842750 from Tatoeba

  3. 我们该不该再加点盐？

    Wǒmen gāi bu gāi zài jiā diǎn yán?

    Should we add a little more salt?

    Sentence #10460442 from Tatoeba

How 盐 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 盐 (yán) with each of its parts in a different colour
盐yánsalt
  • 圤part of the character
  • 皿dish · mǐn

How to write 盐

盐 10 strokes

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

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

Words related to 盐

More words: Food & Drink

吃chī · to eat喝hē · to drink菜cài · dish米饭mǐfàn · cooked rice味道wèidao · flavour小吃xiǎochī · snack西红柿xīhóngshì · tomato咸xián · salted

FAQs

盐 (yán) means “salt”. It is an HSK 4 word.
Say it yán: yán 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, 盐 is written 鹽. The pronunciation is the same.
Use 粒 (lì). For example, one salt is 一粒盐 (yí lì yán).
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type yan with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 盐 from the suggestions. Typing yan into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
盐 is an HSK 4 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.