BaoBao Talk
面
miàn · face; surface, side; plane, dimension
- Pinyin
- miàn
- Tone
- fourth tone, falling
- Strokes
- 9
- HSK level
- HSK 1
- Radical
- 面
- Traditional
- 面麵
What 面 means
- face
- surface, side
- plane, dimension
How to remember 面
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 Midwife
the m- sound
Place
the Antique Shop
AN antique
Tone
the slope down to the cellar
one sharp drop
Put the Midwife at the Antique Shop, the slope down to the cellar, doing something with the strokes above that means “face”. That one picture carries the sound, the tone and the meaning at once. How the method works →
Why the Midwife? the Midwife is a woman because the -i- medial follows the initial, and the name starts with M to echo the m- 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. 面 takes 9 strokes.
Characters that use 面
Remember 面, 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.