东西
dōng xi 1–5
thing; stuff; person
- Characters
- 2
- 东 · 西
- Syllables
- 2
- dōng xi
- Frequency
- Very common
- corpus count 226
Part of speech: n,f,nr
Character by character
- 东dōng5 strokesHSK 1 traditional 東east, eastern, eastward
- 西xī6 strokesHSK 1west(ern); westward; occident; Kangxi radical 146
Each character links to its stroke order page with a tracing and a writing exercise.
Example sentences
有人在吃东西。
Yǒu rén zài chī dōng xi
Somebody is eating.
我正在吃东西。
Wǒ zhèng zài chī dōng xi
I'm eating.
这是什么东西？
Zhè shì shén me dōng xi
What the hell is this?
我想吃点东西。
Wǒ xiǎng chī diǎn dōng xi
I'd like something to eat.
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 东西. Reading them together is how the character starts to stick — the same characters in a different context.
- 西xīHSK 1
west
- 东dōngHSK 1
east; host (i.e. sitting on east side of guest); landlord
- 西部xī bùHSK 3
western part
- 西方xī fāngHSK 2
the West; the Occident; Western countries
- 东部dōng bùHSK 3
the east; eastern part
- 股东gǔ dōngHSK 6
shareholder; stockholder
- 东方dōng fāngHSK 2
east
- 东北dōng běiHSK 2
northeast
- 西装xī zhuāngHSK 5
suit; Western-style clothes
- 西南xī nánHSK 2
southwest
- 西北xī běiHSK 2
northwest
- 西瓜xī guāHSK 4
watermelon
- 房东fáng dōngHSK 3
landlord
- 西红柿xī hóng shìHSK 5
tomato
- 东南dōng nánHSK 2
southeast
- 西边xī biānHSK 1
west; west side; western part; to the west of
- 东边dōng bianHSK 1
east; east side; eastern part; to the east of
- 西班牙语xī bān yá yǔHSK 6
Spanish language
- 西医xī yīHSK 2
Western medicine; a doctor trained in Western medicine
- 西餐xī cānHSK 2
Western-style food
- 东张西望dōng zhāng xī wàngHSK 7
to look in all directions (idiom); to glance around
- 东道主dōng dào zhǔHSK 7
host; official host (e.g. venue for games or a conference)
- 做东zuò dōng
to act as host
- 东奔西走dōng bēn xī zǒuHSK 7
to run this way and that (idiom); to rush about busily; to bustle about; to hopscotch; also 东跑西颠