HSK 6 · Body

指甲 zhǐjia “fingernail” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 指甲 means

  1. fingernail
  2. nail

How to say 指甲

  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale指zhǐ3rd tone, dipping
  • Pitch chart of the neutral tone: short and light, with no contour of its own甲jianeutral tone, light and short

Grey pinyin is a neutral tone: say it short and light. More on the neutral tone

指甲 in a sentence

  1. 她有咬指甲的习惯。

    Tā yǒu yǎo zhǐjia de xíguàn.

    She has a habit of biting her nails.

    Sentence #2411919 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  2. 我的指甲断了。

    Wǒ de zhǐjia duàn le.

    I broke a nail.

    Sentence #1319931 from Tatoeba · translation adapted

  3. 不要再咬指甲了。

    Búyào zài yǎo zhǐjia le.

    Stop biting your nails.

    Sentence #1423346 from Tatoeba

How 指甲 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 指 (zhǐ) with each of its parts in a different colour
指zhǐfinger
  • 扌hand form of 手 · shǒu
  • 旨aim · zhǐ
The character 甲 (jiǎ) drawn as one shape
甲jiǎfirst of the ten Heavenly Stems 十天干light in 指甲

甲 is a single shape of 5 strokes. Learn it whole, then watch its stroke order below.

How to write 指甲

指 9 strokes · 甲 5 strokes

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

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

Words related to 指甲

Words with 指

指zhǐ · finger手指shǒuzhǐ · finger戒指jièzhi · (finger) ring指导zhǐdǎo · to guide指挥zhǐhuī · to conduct指示zhǐshì · to instruct指责zhǐzé · to criticise指定zhǐdìng · to appoint指望zhǐwàng · to count on指令zhǐlìng · instruction

Words with 甲

甲jiǎ · first (in a sequence)

More words: People, Body & Health

遗传yíchuán · genetic眨zhǎ · to blink症状zhèngzhuàng · symptom脂肪zhīfáng · fat (body or dietary)知觉zhījué · perception肿瘤zhǒngliú · tumour皱纹zhòuwén · wrinkle注射zhùshè · to inject

FAQs

指甲 (zhǐjia) means “fingernail” or “nail”. It is an HSK 6 word.
Say it zhǐjia: zhǐ with a 3rd tone, then jia with a neutral tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 指甲 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type zhijia with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 指甲 from the suggestions. Typing zhijia into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
指甲 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.