HSK 3.0 Level 1 · Time

早 zǎo “early” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 早 means

  1. early
  2. morning
  3. Good morning!
  4. long ago
  5. prematurely

How to say 早

  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale早zǎo3rd tone, dipping

早 in a sentence

  1. 还早呢。

    Hái zǎo ne.

    It’s still early.

    Sentence #6559035 from Tatoeba · converted to simplified characters · translation adapted

  2. 我今天累，所以我睡得早。

    Wǒ jīntiān lèi, suǒyǐ wǒ shuì de zǎo.

    I was tired today, so I went to bed early.

    Sentence #5655339 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 妈妈起得比谁都早。

    Māma qǐ de bǐ shéi dōu zǎo.

    Mum gets up earlier than anyone else.

    Sentence #8723671 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

How 早 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 早 (zǎo) with each of its parts in a different colour
早zǎoearly
  • 日sun · rì
  • 十ten · shí

How to write 早

早 6 strokes

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

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

Words related to 早

Words with 早

早饭zǎofàn · breakfast早上zǎoshang · morning迟早chízǎo · sooner or later及早jízǎo · as early as possible

More words: Time & Dates

天tiān · day晚wǎn · evening星期日Xīngqīrì · Sunday星期天Xīngqītiān · Sunday从小cóngxiǎo · from childhood过年guònián · to celebrate the Chinese New Year时shí · o’clock小时候xiǎoshíhou · in one’s childhood

FAQs

早 (zǎo) means “early” or “morning”. It is an HSK 3.0 Level 1 word.
Say it zǎo: zǎo with a 3rd tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 早 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type zao with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 早 from the suggestions. Typing zao into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
早 is an HSK 3.0 Level 1 word in the official 2021 syllabus, and it is on our HSK 3.0 Band 1 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.