七八年 (qī bā nián) — seven or eight years; about seven or eight years

Definition

七八年 is an approximate quantity 'seven or eight years' — used like 'seven-ish years' to give a rough, informal span. Pairs with time expressions like 前, 后, or 来 to mean 'about X years ago/later'.

noun
seven or eight yearsabout seven or eight years

Examples

  • 七八年。
    Tā xué le qī bā nián zhōng wén.
    He studied Chinese for seven or eight years.
  • 七八年。
    qī bā nián Qián wǒ men jiàn guò yí cì.
    We met once seven or eight years ago.
  • 七八年。
    Zhè suǒ xué xiào yǒu qī bā nián lì shǐ le.
    This school has a history of seven or eight years.

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.

七八seven or eight
七qīseven八bāeight
联合Side by side
年niányear

七 and 八 give an approximate count of 年.

Characters in this word

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

The shape of 七 comes from two crossing lines: the top line runs left to right, and the next line goes down and across.

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

八 shows two bent lines, indicating the original meaning 'to divide'; it was later used for 'eight' because the words sounded alike.

Open 八 →

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 →

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