大学生 (dà xué shēng) — university student; college student

Definition

noun

university studentcollege student

Measure word · 个

大学生。
Tā de jiě jie shì dà xué shēng.
Her older sister is a university student.
大学生？
Nà ge dà xué shēng zài dú shén me?
What is that university student reading?
大学生。
dà xué shēng Dōu zài xué xiào dú shū.
University students all read books at school.

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.

大学university

偏正Modifier + head

大 means large, 学 means study, and 生 means student, so 大学生 is a student at a university.

Characters in this word

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

The form 大 is a picture of a person standing and facing forward, not of someone stretching their arms.

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.

Two or more meaningful parts placed together so that their meanings combine into a new one.

生 shows 屮 (a bud) above 一 (the ground), drawing a sprout coming up from the earth.

Appears in