Meaning of 子女
Definitions from CC-CEDICT.
- children; sons and daughters
How to use 子女
子女 is a more formal, collective word for a person's children, common in writing, news, and official forms. It describes children in relation to their parents, not little kids in general. Example: 父母都希望子女幸福。(Fùmǔ dōu xīwàng zǐnǚ xìngfú.) Parents all hope their children will be happy.
子女 combines 子 (zǐ), a son or child, with 女 (nǚ), a woman or daughter. Put a son and a daughter side by side and you get all of someone's children.
Common mistake: Learners often use 子女 to mean young kids, as in 公园里有很多子女, but that sounds wrong. For kids in general use 孩子 (háizi), and save 子女 for someone's offspring of any age. Also note that 子 here is read with its full third tone, zǐ, not as the neutral-tone suffix zi found in 孩子 or 房子.
子女 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.
子 zi · noun suffix · 3 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
女 nǚ · female · 3 strokes
- 1
- 2
- 3
Related words
Words that share a character with 子女.
Questions about 子女
What does 子女 mean?
子女 (zǐnǚ) means "children; sons and daughters" and is used as a noun.
How do you write 子女?
子女 is made of 2 characters: 子 (3 strokes), 女 (3 strokes). That is 6 strokes in total.
Is 子女 an HSK word?
Yes. 子女 is on the HSK 3 vocabulary list of the HSK 3.0 standard.
What is the difference between 子女 and 孩子?
孩子 is everyday and can mean any child or your own kids. 子女 is more formal and only means sons and daughters in relation to parents, so an adult can still be someone's 子女.
Can 子女 refer to just one child?
It is usually collective, like 他有两个子女 (He has two children). For one child, people normally say 儿子 (érzi), 女儿 (nǚ'ér), or 孩子 instead.