BaoBao Talk
牙
yá · tooth, molar; fang, tusk; serrated
- Pinyin
- yá
- Tone
- second tone, rising
- Strokes
- 4
- HSK level
- HSK 4
- Radical
- 牙
What 牙 means
- tooth, molar
- fang, tusk
- serrated
How to remember 牙
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 Empress
the y- sound
Place
the Farmhouse
aaah, out in the open air
Tone
the stairs going up
the pitch climbs with you
Put the Empress at the Farmhouse, the stairs going up, doing something with the strokes above that means “tooth, molar”. That one picture carries the sound, the tone and the meaning at once. How the method works →
Why the Empress? the Empress is a woman because the -i- medial follows the initial, and the name starts with E to echo the y- 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. 牙 takes 4 strokes.
Characters that use 牙
Remember 牙, 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.