童年 (tóng nián) — childhood | TongTong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

童年 means the whole period of being a child. Compare 小时候, which marks a specific time 'when (you were) young'; 童年 is more like 'childhood' as a life stage, closer in feel to 儿童 but as an era rather than individual kids.

noun

childhood

Examples

童年。
Wǒ jīng cháng xiǎng qǐ wǒ de tóng nián.
I often think of my childhood.
童年。
Tā de tóng nián zài nóng cūn dù guò.
His childhood was spent in the countryside.
童年。
tóng nián De shí guāng zǒng shì hěn měi hǎo.
Childhood times are always wonderful.

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.

Child and years combine to mean the years of being a child.

Characters in this word

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

䇂䇂䇂chisel
見見jiànkneeling person with a huge eye

The form 童 comes from a pairing of 䇂 (a chisel) with 見 (a kneeling person with a huge eye), depicting a person having an eye gouged out.

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.

Appears in

HSK 3.0 Level 4 Life Stages & Age 5000 Most Frequent Chinese Words

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