What does 那 mean in Chinese?

那 (nà) means "that" in Chinese. The new HSK exam expects you to recognise it at HSK 1.

How do you write 那?

那 is written with 6 strokes, starting from the 阝 (mound) 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 那?

The radical of 那 is 阝 (mound, Kangxi radical #170). Other common HSK characters using the same radical include 除, 险, 都, 院.

How many strokes does 那 have?

The Chinese character 那 has 6 strokes.

What HSK level is 那?

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

那 (nà): Meaning, Stroke Order, Radical & Examples

那

nà

that

HSK 1 character 6 strokes Radical: 阝 (mound)

Quick Answer

那 (nà) means "that" with 6 strokes, radical 阝 (mound), HSK 1 on the new exam.

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

Pronunciation

nà

Meaning

Primary: that

Etymology

Oracle-bone origin

那 does not appear in oracle-bone script in its modern sense. It is a phono-semantic compound written with 邑 (city, the right-side 阝) as the semantic component and 冉 (ran) as an early phonetic indicator. In pre-Qin texts it originally referred to a specific place name, a state or region in the west.

Form evolution

The earliest attested forms are in bronze and seal script, where the left element was written clearly as 冄/冉 and the right as 邑. In clerical script the 邑 component was regularised into the right-hand 阝 shape, and the left element was simplified to the modern 那 form seen in kaishu. The overall structure has stayed stable since the Han dynasty.

How the meaning evolved

The original toponym sense fell out of everyday use early, and 那 was borrowed phonetically to write a demonstrative pronoun meaning 'that' or 'those'. By the medieval period this grammatical use had fully displaced the place-name meaning in common speech. In modern Mandarin it is almost exclusively the demonstrative 'that', paired with 这 (this), and also functions as an interrogative root in 哪 (which).

Cultural note

Learners frequently confuse 那 (nà, that) with 哪 (nǎ, which), which is simply 那 plus a 口 radical to mark the question form. The place-name origin survives fossilised in a few classical references and in the surname 那 (Nā).

Mnemonic

A city wall over there — that place

Decomposition

那=刀component+二component+阝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	nà
Meanings	that
Stroke count	6 strokes
Radical	阝 (#170: mound)
New HSK exam	Recognise at HSK 1, write by hand at HSK 1-2
Frequency	#1051 most common

Example sentences

那是我的书。
Nà shì wǒ de shū.
That is my book.
From 那 (HSK 1)
既然你累了，那么就早点休息吧。
Jìrán nǐ lèi le, nàme jiù zǎodiǎn xiūxi ba.
Since you're tired, then rest early.
From 那么 (HSK 2)