What does 我 mean in Chinese?

我 (wǒ) means "I, me" in Chinese. The new HSK exam expects you to recognise it at HSK 1.

How do you write 我?

我 is written with 7 strokes, starting from the 戈 (halberd) radical and following standard Chinese stroke order (top to bottom, left to right). See the interactive stroke-order tool for the full animation.

What is the radical of 我?

The radical of 我 is 戈 (halberd, Kangxi radical #62). Other common HSK characters using the same radical include 戴, 戈.

How many strokes does 我 have?

The Chinese character 我 has 7 strokes.

What HSK level is 我?

On the new HSK exam syllabus, 我 is a character to recognise at HSK 1 and to write by hand at HSK 2 (the handwriting list HSK 1 and 2 share).

我 (wǒ): Meaning, Stroke Order, Radical & Examples

我

wǒ

I, me

HSK 1 character 7 strokes Radical: 戈 (halberd)

Quick Answer

我 (wǒ) means "I, me" with 7 strokes, radical 戈 (halberd), HSK 1 on the new exam.

Full dictionary entry for 我 →Animated stroke-order for 我 →

Pronunciation

wǒ

Meaning

Primary: I

Other meanings:

Etymology

Oracle-bone origin

我 in oracle-bone and bronze inscriptions is a pictograph of a serrated, long-handled weapon, usually identified as a type of battle-axe or dagger-axe (戈) with a toothed blade. It was originally the name of this weapon, not a pronoun. The phonetic borrowing of the weapon's name to write the first-person pronoun happened very early, already visible in oracle-bone usage.

Form evolution

Oracle-bone forms show a clear weapon outline with prongs on the blade and a vertical handle. Bronze script kept the weapon recognisable but began to regularise the serrations into strokes. Seal script abstracted the handle and blade into the familiar 戈-on-the-right plus a component on the left. Clerical and modern 楷书 fixed the shape, with the right side still identifiable as 戈 and the left side a reduced, no-longer-pictographic remnant of the blade.

How the meaning evolved

The original meaning 'a type of axe' is completely dead in modern Chinese; the character functions purely as the first-person singular pronoun 'I, me'. This shift is a classic case of 假借 jiǎjiè, phonetic loan, where a concrete noun's graph was reused for an abstract word that sounded similar and had no graph of its own. Classical Chinese also used 我 as a plural 'we' and as a reflexive in some constructions.

Cultural note

The right-hand 戈 in 我 is the same weapon component found in 战 (war), 伐 (to attack), and 戒 (to guard), so 我 is etymologically a roomful of weapons even though nobody feels that when saying 'I'. The idiom 我行我素 wǒxíng-wǒsù, 'I do as I always have', uses 我 twice to emphasise self-directed behaviour.

Mnemonic

A hand holding a weapon — I defend myself

Decomposition

我=手component+戈radical

Breaking a character into its components makes it far easier to recall. Each component above links to its own detail page.

Basic info

Pinyin	wǒ
Meanings	I, me
Stroke count	7 strokes
Radical	戈 (#62: halberd)
New HSK exam	Recognise at HSK 1, write by hand at HSK 1-2
Frequency	#1008 most common