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老家 (lǎo jiā) — one's hometown (especially one's ancestral home)

Definition

老家 is your hometown as a place you actually return to — often your family's old home village. 家乡 is the broader hometown/region; 籍贯 and 祖籍 are formal words for registered or ancestral origin on paper.

noun
one's hometown (especially one's ancestral home)

Examples

  • 。
    Wǒ měi nián chūn jié dōu huí lǎo jiā.
    I go back to my hometown every Spring Festival.
  • 老家。
    Tā de lǎo jiā zài shān dōng nóng cūn.
    His hometown is in a village in Shandong.
  • ，老家。
    Wǒ suī rán zhù zài dà chéng shì, dàn lǎo jiā hái shì wǒ zuì xiǎng huí qù de dì fāng.
    Even though I live in a big city, my hometown is still the place I most want to go back to.

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.

老lǎoold
家jiāhome

老 (old) and 家 (home) together mean one's original or ancestral home.

Characters in this word

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

The shape 老 combines 人 (man), 毛 (hair), and 匕 (cane), showing a man with long hair leaning on a cane.

Open 老 →

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
宀宀miánroof
Sound part声符shēngfú
𢑓
𢑓𢑓家jiā
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The early drawing of 家 showed a roof 宀 over a male-pig sign 𢑓 that gave the pronunciation; the lower part later changed shape.

Open 家 →
Appears in
HSK 3.0 Level 4Home & Housing

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