Meaning of 上班族
Definitions from CC-CEDICT.
- office workers (as social group)
How to use 上班族
上班族 describes salaried workers as a social group, often in talk about commuting, stress, or lifestyle. It is common in news and everyday conversation. Example: 很多上班族每天坐地铁。(Hěn duō shàngbānzú měitiān zuò dìtiě.) Many office workers take the subway every day.
Break it into 上班 (shàngbān, to go to work) plus 族 (zú, group or tribe). The people who 上班 every day form a whole 族, the tribe of office workers.
Common mistake: Learners sometimes use 上班族 to mean one specific coworker, but it names a type or group of people. For a colleague, say 同事 (tóngshì). Also keep 上 in the fourth tone, shàng, not the neutral tone it has in words like 晚上 (wǎnshang).
上班族 in example sentences
Real sentences from the Tatoeba project, with pinyin and English.
Stroke order for each character
Open a character for its meaning, components and more words.
上 shàng · up · 3 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
班 bān · team · 10 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
族 zú · race · 11 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
Related words
Words that share a character with 上班族.
| 马上 | mǎshàng | at once; right away |
| 晚上 | wǎnshang | evening; night |
| 身上 | shēnshang | on the body; at hand |
| 早上 | zǎoshang | early morning |
| 上次 | shàng cì | last time |
| 路上 | lùshang | on the road; on the way; en route |
| 上班 | shàngbān | to go to work; to be on duty |
| 上车 | shàng chē | to get on or into (a bus, train, car etc) |
| 地上 | dìshang | on the ground; on the floor |
| 楼上 | lóu shàng | upstairs; (Internet slang) previous poster in a forum thread |
| 车上 | chē shang | |
| 上学 | shàngxué | to go to school; to attend school |
Questions about 上班族
What does 上班族 mean?
上班族 (shàngbānzú) means "office workers (as social group)" and is used as a noun.
How do you write 上班族?
上班族 is made of 3 characters: 上 (3 strokes), 班 (10 strokes), 族 (11 strokes). That is 24 strokes in total.
Is 上班族 an HSK word?
Yes. 上班族 is on the HSK 6 vocabulary list of the HSK 3.0 standard.
Can I call myself a 上班族?
Yes. 我是上班族 (wǒ shì shàngbānzú) is a natural way to say you have a regular job. It suggests a normal salaried job, not running your own business.
What other words use 族 for a group of people?
族 often attaches to a word to name a social group. Common examples are 月光族 (yuèguāngzú), people who spend their whole salary each month, and 低头族 (dītóuzú), people always looking down at their phones.