BaoBao Talk
搓
cuō · to rub or roll between the hands
- Pinyin
- cuō
- Tone
- first tone, high and level
- Strokes
- 12
- HSK level
- HSK 8
- Radical
- 扌
What 搓 means
- to rub or roll between the hands
How to remember 搓
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 Cobra
the c- sound
Place
the Rowing Club
r-OW
Tone
the flat forecourt out front
level ground, level pitch
Put the Cobra at the Rowing Club, the flat forecourt out front, doing something with 扌 and 差 that means “to rub or roll between the hands”. That one picture carries the sound, the tone and the meaning at once. How the method works →
Why the Cobra? the Cobra is an animal because the -u- medial follows the initial, and the name starts with C to echo the c- 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. 搓 takes 12 strokes.
What 搓 is built from
扌 差
Characters are made of a small number of repeating parts. Learn the parts once and every character that uses them gets easier.
Remember 搓, 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.