TongTong
Sign in

少年 (shào nián) — youth, youngster (a person in their early teens to early 20s)

Definition

少年 (shàonián) means a young person in their early teens — a stage between childhood and adulthood. Narrower than 青年 (which covers the broader young-adult years) and less colloquial than 小伙子.

noun
youthyoungster (a person in their early teens to early 20s)
Measure word · 个

Examples

  • 少年。
    Nà ge shào nián xǐ huan dǎ lán qiú.
    That youngster likes playing basketball.
  • 少年。
    Zhè xiē shào nián dōu shì wǒ de tóng xué.
    These youngsters are all my classmates.
  • 少年。
    Tā cóng xiǎo jiù shì yí gè cōng ming de shào nián.
    He has been a smart youngster since childhood.

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.

少shǎoyoung
年niánage

少 means young, and 年 refers to age, pointing to a person in young years.

Characters in this word

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

The form 少 is drawn as four dots, perhaps three grains of sand, to indicate a few or a little.

Open 少 →

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

Meaning part形符xíngfú
禾禾héwheat; grain
Sound part声符shēngfú
人
人rén年nián
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

年 pairs 禾 (grain) with 人, which gives the sound. Its original meaning was harvest, and it later came to mean a year.

Open 年 →
Appears in
HSK 3.0 Level 4Life Stages & Age5000 Most Frequent Chinese Words

Browse more HSK 4 words or search the full 43,000-word dictionary.