故事

Character by character

• 故gù9 strokesHSK 2ancient, old; reason, because
• 事shì8 strokesHSK 1affair, matter, business; to serve; accident, incident

Each character links to its stroke order page with a tracing and a writing exercise.

Example sentences

• 我想听个故事！

  Wǒ xiǎng tīng gè gù shi

  I want to hear a story!

  Listen

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 故事. Reading them together is how the character starts to stick — the same characters in a different context.

• 事shìHSK 1

  matter; thing; item; work; affair

• 事情shì qingHSK 2

  affair; matter; thing; business

• 事件shì jiànHSK 3

  event; happening; incident

• 事实shì shíHSK 3

  fact

• 事业shì yèHSK 3

  undertaking; project; activity; (charitable, political or revolutionary) cause; publicly funded institution, enterprise or foundation; career; occupation

• 事故shì gùHSK 3

  accident

• 事实上shì shí shàngHSK 3

  in fact; in reality; actually; as a matter of fact; de facto; ipso facto

• 同事tóng shìHSK 2

  colleague; co-worker

• 故意gù yìHSK 2

  deliberately; on purpose

• 军事jūn shìHSK 6

  military affairs; (attributive) military

• 好事hǎo shìHSK 2

  good action, deed, thing or work (also sarcastic, "a fine thing indeed"); charity; happy occasion; Daoist or Buddhist ceremony for the souls of the dead

• 从事cóng shìHSK 3

  to go for; to engage in; to undertake; to deal with; to handle; to do

• 大事dà shìHSK 5

  major event; major political event (war or change of regime); major social event (wedding or funeral); (do sth) in a big way

• 当事人dāng shì rénHSK 7

  persons involved or implicated; party (to an affair)

• 事物shì wùHSK 4

  thing; object

• 董事会dǒng shì huìHSK 7

  board of directors

• 事务所shì wù suǒHSK 7

  office; firm

• 事务shì wùHSK 7

  (political, economic etc) affairs; work; transaction (as in a computer database)

• 故障gù zhàngHSK 6

  malfunction; breakdown; defect; shortcoming; fault; failure; impediment; error; bug (in software)

• 事先shì xiānHSK 4

  in advance; before the event; beforehand; prior

• 办事bàn shìHSK 4

  to handle (affairs); to work

• 此事cǐ shìHSK 6

  this matter

• 出事chū shìHSK 6

  to have an accident; to meet with a mishap

• 本事běn shìHSK 3

  source material; original story