BaoBao Talk
掀
xiān · to stir up; to turn over
- Pinyin
- xiān
- Tone
- first tone, high and level
- Strokes
- 11
- HSK level
- HSK 8
- Radical
- 扌
What 掀 means
- to stir up
- to turn over
How to remember 掀
Its sound decides the scene before you invent anything: the start picks who is in it, the ending picks where, and the tone picks where in that place you are standing.
Actor
the Seamstress
the x- sound
Place
the Antique Shop
AN antique
Tone
the flat forecourt out front
level ground, level pitch
Put the Seamstress at the Antique Shop, the flat forecourt out front, doing something with 扌 and 欣 that means “to stir up”. That one picture carries the sound, the tone and the meaning at once. How the method works →
Why the Seamstress? the Seamstress is a woman because the -i- medial follows the initial, and the name starts with S to echo the x- it stands for. All 55 actors →
Stroke order
The diagram above shades the strokes from first to last: the palest stroke is written first, the darkest last. 掀 takes 11 strokes.
What 掀 is built from
扌 欣
Characters are made of a small number of repeating parts. Learn the parts once and every character that uses them gets easier.
Remember 掀, don't just look it up
BaoBao Talk turns each character into a scene built from its own sound and tone, so it has something to hang on. The parts repeat, which is why the hundredth character costs less effort than the tenth.