ZHIZHI 知止 · LEARN CHINESE DAILY

song

14 strokes · 哥 (elder brother, sound gē) + 欠 (open mouth exhaling) · HSK 2

Where 歌 comes from

欠 draws a person with mouth open, breath flowing out — the radical of yawns, sighs, and songs. 哥 supplies the sound. A song is literally 'the gē that comes out on your breath'.

歌 in Chinese culture

From the 诗经 Book of Songs — folk lyrics collected three thousand years ago — to 国歌 the national anthem, 歌 has always been how Chinese collective memory travels. Mountain folk duets (山歌) were dating apps before phones: villages courted by singing across valleys.

Example

歌手 gēshǒu — singer

这首歌很好听。
Zhè shǒu gē hěn hǎotīng.
This song is beautiful.

How to remember it

Big brother 哥 with his mouth open 欠 — always ready with a SONG.

The measure word for songs is 首 shǒu — 'head'. 一首歌 = one 'head' of song, the same measure word used for poems.

Same sound, different tones

1st gē
song
2nd gé
pattern
3rd gě
barge
4th gè
(measure word)

Words unlocked by 歌

唱歌 chànggē
to sing
歌手 gēshǒu
singer
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