HSK 6 · Verbs

砸 zá “to smash” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 砸 means

  1. to smash
  2. to pound
  3. to mess up
  4. to fail
  5. to muck up
More meanings from CC-CEDICT
  • to bungle

How to say 砸

  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale砸zá2nd tone, rising

砸 in a sentence

  1. 有人把我新车的挡风玻璃砸碎了。

    Yǒurén bǎ wǒ xīn chē de dǎngfēng bōli zásuì le.

    Someone smashed the windscreen of my new car.

    Sentence #9961285 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 令我非常伤心的是她考砸了。

    Lìng wǒ fēicháng shāngxīn de shì tā kǎozá le.

    What upset me most was that she did badly in the exam.

    Sentence #6315382 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 把安全帽戴上。这里很可能会有砖块砸到你头上。

    Bǎ ānquánmào dàishang. Zhèlǐ hěn kěnéng huì yǒu zhuānkuài zá dào nǐ tóushàng.

    Put your hard hat on. Bricks could easily fall on your head here.

    Sentence #13917143 from Tatoeba · converted to simplified characters · translation adapted

How 砸 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 砸 (zá) with each of its parts in a different colour
砸záto smash
  • 石stone · shíMeaning part
  • 匝full circle · zāSound part

石 hints at the meaning (stone); 匝 (zā) hints at the sound. Compare it with zá.

How to write 砸

砸 10 strokes

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

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

Words related to 砸

More words: Common Verbs

涌现yǒngxiàn · to emerge拥有yōngyǒu · to have约束yuēshù · to restrain孕育yùnyù · to nurture宰zǎi · to slaughter栽培zāipéi · to cultivate遭受zāoshòu · to suffer糟蹋zāotà · to waste

FAQs

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