Learn Chinese Characters

Meaning

(look) like; similar (to); appearance; to appear; to seem; image

Chinese: 相似、图像或好像。

Hear the Four Tones

The same syllable “xiang” becomes a different word in each tone. 像 is the 4th tone. Tap any tone to hear a native voice and see its pitch shape.

Stroke Order

Tap Animate to watch the strokes in order, or Practice to trace it yourself.

Common Words

  • 好像hǎo xiàngas if; to seem like
  • 偶像ǒu xiàngidol
  • 摄像机shè xiàng jīvideo camera
  • 摄像shè xiàngto videotape
  • 录像lù xiàngto videotape; to videorecord; video recording

Example Sentence

这个孩子长得很像他爸爸。Zhè ge hái zi zhǎng de hěn xiàng tā bà ba.This child looks a lot like his father.

这个Zhè ge(pronoun) this孩子hái zichild长得zhǎng deto look (pretty, the same hěnveryxiàngto resemblehe爸爸bà ba(coll.) father

Go deeper

Where this character comes from

The person radical 亻 plus 象 (elephant, sound and ‘image’): a likeness — ‘to resemble, be like; an image, portrait, statue; such as, like’ (好像, 画像, 像…一样).

A way to remember it

Person (亻) + 象 — to resemble; a portrait, statue.

Easy to confuse with

  • xiàng‘Elephant / image’: 像 without the person radical; used for natural images (现象, 印象).