TongTong
Sign in

同学 (tóng xué) — classmate; fellow student

Definition

A classmate or fellow student — someone you study with at the same school. Unlike 学生 ('student' in general), 同学 emphasizes the shared-school relationship, and pairs with 同事 ('colleague') in the 同… pattern for "fellow ____".

noun
classmatefellow student
Measure word · 位, 个

Examples

  • 同学。
    Tā shì wǒ tóng xué.
    He is my classmate.
  • 同学。
    Wǒ tóng xué hěn hǎo.
    My classmate is very nice.
  • 同学。
    Wǒ yǒu yí gè tóng xué.
    I have a classmate.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

同tóngsame
学xuéstudy

同 means same and 学 means study, so 同学 are people studying together.

Characters in this word

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

同 originally drew a pipe. It is the old form of 筒.

Open 同 →

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 學; 学 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 學 may have used 爻 and 六 for sound, with hands and a child added later; the simplified 学 is a shorthand.

Open 学 →
Appears in
HSK 3.0 Level 1HSK 2.0 Level 1Friends & SocialSchool & Education3000 Most Frequent Chinese Words5000 Most Frequent Chinese Words

Browse more HSK 1 words or search the full 43,000-word dictionary.