什么
shén me 2–5
what?; something; anything
- Characters
- 2
- 什 · 么
- Syllables
- 2
- shén me
- Frequency
- Very common
- corpus count 55
Part of speech: r
Character by character
- 什shén4 strokesHSK 1file of ten soldiers; mixed, miscellaneous
- 么me3 strokesHSK 1 traditional 幺interrogative particle; small
Each character links to its stroke order page with a tracing and a writing exercise.
Example sentences
为什么？
Wèi shén me
Why?
你说什么？
Nǐ shuō shén me
What did you say?
这是什么？
Zhè shì shén me
What is this?
那是什么？
Nà shì shén me
What is over there?
Example sentences from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR), contributed by their community.
Words with the same characters
These words share at least one character with 什么. Reading them together is how the character starts to stick — the same characters in a different context.
- 怎么zěn meHSK 1
how?; what?; why?
- 那么nà meHSK 2
like that; in that way; or so; so; so very much; about; in that case
- 这么zhè meHSK 2
so much; this much; how much?; this way; like this
- 为什么wèi shén meHSK 2
why?; for what reason?
- 怎么样zěn me yàngHSK 2
how?; how about?; how was it?; how are things?
- 怎么办zěn me bànHSK 2
what's to be done
- 没什么méi shén meHSK 1
nothing; it doesn't matter; it's nothing; never mind
- 多么duō meHSK 2
how (wonderful etc); what (a great idea etc); however (difficult it may be etc); (in interrogative sentences) how (much etc); to what extent
- 什么样shén me yàngHSK 2
what kind?; what sort?
- 要么yào meHSK 6
or; either one or the other
- 干什么gàn shén meHSK 1
what are you doing?; what's he up to?
- 不怎么bù zěn meHSK 6
not very; not particularly
- 不怎么样bù zěn me yàngHSK 6
not up to much; very indifferent; nothing great about it; nothing good to be said about it