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时候

shí hou 2–5

time; length of time; moment; period

HSK level
HSK 1
HSK 2.0 level 1 · HSK 3.0 level 1
Characters
2
时 · 候
Syllables
2
shí hou
Frequency
Very common
corpus count 107

Part of speech: n

Character by character

  • 时shí7 strokesHSK 1 traditional 時time, season; era, age, period
  • 候hòu10 strokesHSK 1wait; expect; visit; greet

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

Example sentences

  • 什么时候？

    Shén me shí hou

    When?

  • 你什么时候来？

    Nǐ shén me shí hou lái

    When will you come?

  • 你什么时候去？

    Nǐ shén me shí hou qù

    When are you going?

  • 你什么时候走？

    Nǐ shén me shí hou zǒu

    What time are you leaving?

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

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