Chinese Character Wiki
問

wèn

ask (about)

Phonosemantic compound. 口 represents the meaning and 門 represents the sound.

Components
口 meaning component

口  Meaning component

kǒu

  

mouth

門 sound component

門  Sound component

mén

  

door

Evolution

問 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
問 Bronze script Mid Warring States (~300 BC)

Bronze script

Mid Warring States (~300 BC)
問 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
問 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
問 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

问 (問) 

wèn

ask (about), inquire after; to ask

Most common words with 問
Freq.
Word
Meaning

问题

question

问

to ask

访问

to visit

询问

to inquire

请问

Excuse me, may I ask...?

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*C.mu[n]-s

mjunH

wèn

ask


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 98.3502% of movies

131st most common character in movies

137th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

11

Simplified

问

Unicode

U+554F

Shuowen

“問，訊也。从口，門聲。”


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