HSK 3.0 Level 4 · Adverbs

已 yǐ “already” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 已 means

  1. already
  2. (bound form) to stop
  3. to cease
  4. to end

How to say 已

  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale已yǐ3rd tone, dipping

已 in a sentence

  1. 我已告诉她要做什么。

    Wǒ yǐ gàosu tā yào zuò shénme.

    I’ve already told her what to do.

    Sentence #1020111 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 你知道怎么恢复已删除的文件吗？

    Nǐ zhīdao zěnme huīfù yǐ shānchú de wénjiàn ma?

    Do you know how to recover a deleted file?

    Sentence #5722730 from Tatoeba

  3. 反正事情已过去了，那不用再提了。

    Fǎnzhèng shìqing yǐ guòqù le, nà búyòng zài tí le.

    Anyway, it’s all in the past, so there’s no need to bring it up again.

    Sentence #9401702 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 已 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 已 (yǐ) drawn as one shape
已yǐalready

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

How to write 已

已 3 strokes

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

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

Words related to 已

Words with 已

已经yǐjīng · already而已éryǐ · that’s all不得已bùdéyǐ · to have no choice

More words: Adverbs & Degree

常cháng · often全quán · whole同样tóngyàng · likewise就是jiùshì · exactly好好hǎohǎo · properly再次zàicì · once again仍réng · still仅jǐn · only

FAQs

已 (yǐ) means “already” or “(bound form) to stop”. It is an HSK 3.0 Level 4 word.
Say it yǐ: yǐ with a 3rd tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 已 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type yi with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 已 from the suggestions. Typing yi into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
已 is an HSK 3.0 Level 4 word in the official 2021 syllabus, and it is on our HSK 3.0 Band 6 word list. It is not on the older 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.