塾 meaning and stroke order
Village school; private tutorage
How to write 塾, stroke by stroke
14 strokes in order. Each box adds the next stroke in red. Write top to bottom and left to right, and finish enclosing strokes last.
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Meaning of 塾
Definitions from CC-CEDICT, grouped by pronunciation.
- private school
How 塾 is built
Phono-semantic (sound + meaning) character. Earth.
土 gives the meaning and 孰 hints at the sound.
Radical: 土 (soil), shared by 183 characters on this site.
How to remember 塾
塾 is 孰 (shú) sitting on top of 土 (tǔ, earth). Picture a small village schoolhouse built on the ground, and let 孰 on top give you the sound shú.
塾 is mostly used for traditional private schools, as in 私塾 (sīshú), the old-style schools where a teacher taught village children at home. In modern Chinese it also appears in words for cram schools or tutoring centers, especially in Japanese-influenced or Taiwanese usage. Example: 他小时候上过私塾。(Tā xiǎoshíhou shàng guo sīshú.) He attended a private village school as a child.
Common mistake: Learners often confuse 塾 (shú) with 熟 (shú, ripe, familiar), which has the same top 孰 and the same sound but four dots 灬 at the bottom instead of 土. Remember that the school stands on earth 土, while cooking needs fire 灬.
Questions about 塾
How many strokes are in 塾?
塾 is written with 14 strokes. The diagrams on this page number every stroke in the order it is written, with the new stroke shown in red.
What does 塾 mean?
塾 (shú) means village school; private tutorage.
How do you pronounce 塾?
塾 is pronounced shú, in the second tone (rising).
What is the radical of 塾?
The radical of 塾 is 土, which carries the idea of "soil". Dictionaries list 塾 under this radical.
Is 塾 used in everyday modern Chinese?
Not very often in mainland speech. You mostly see it in 私塾 (sīshú) when talking about history, or in names of tutoring schools. For a normal school, people say 学校 (xuéxiào).
How do you say cram school in Chinese?
In mainland China the common word is 补习班 (bǔxíbān). In Taiwan people also say 补习班, while 塾 appears more in Japanese, where it is the standard word for cram school.