她 (tā) means "she, her" with 6 strokes, radical 女 (woman), HSK 1 on the new exam.
Pronunciation
Meaning
Primary: she
Other meanings:
- her
Etymology
Oracle-bone origin
她 has no ancient pictographic origin. It is an early twentieth century coinage, created during the May Fourth period to give written Chinese a dedicated third person feminine pronoun, parallel to English she. The character is built as a phono-semantic compound, with 女 supplying the female meaning and 也 supplying both the pronunciation tā and the analogy with the existing pronoun 他.
Form evolution
Because 她 is a modern coinage, it has no oracle bone, bronze, seal, or clerical history. Its design simply substitutes the 亻 (person) radical of 他 with the 女 radical, keeping the same 也 phonetic on the right. The character has been written in this form since its introduction and is now standard in both simplified and traditional script.
How the meaning evolved
The character is generally credited to the writer and translator Liu Bannong (刘半农), who proposed it around 1917 to 1920 and popularised it in his poem 教我如何不想她. Before its adoption translators struggled to render English she, often using 他 ambiguously or borrowing 伊. In modern usage 她 is the standard written third person pronoun for women, and is sometimes extended in literary writing to refer to nations, the moon, or other personified feminine entities.
Cultural note
The introduction of 她 was politically charged at the time, with conservatives objecting that classical Chinese had managed without a gendered pronoun for two thousand years. Liu Bannong's poem set to music by Zhao Yuanren remains the locus classicus for the character and is still widely sung.
Mnemonic
A woman who is also present — she
Decomposition
Breaking a character into its components makes it far easier to recall. Each component above links to its own detail page.
Basic info
| Pinyin | tā |
| Meanings | she, her |
| Stroke count | 6 strokes |
| Radical | 女 (#38: woman) |
| New HSK exam | Recognise at HSK 1, write by hand at HSK 1-2 |
| Frequency | #1405 most common |
Example sentences
她是医生。
Tā shì yīshēng.
She is a doctor.
From 她 (HSK 1)
Words containing 她
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning | HSK |
|---|---|---|---|
| 她 | tā | she, her | HSK 1 |
Related characters
On the new HSK 1 exam
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Frequently Asked Questions
Reviewed by RJ Murray, Founder, HSK Lord.