Dictionary › 吵

吵

chǎo

Old HSK 4 HSK 3.0 character level 5 Character

吵 (chǎo) means "to quarrel / be noisy". It is an HSK 3.0 level 5 word, and was HSK 4 in the old six-level list.

What 吵 means

1. to quarrel
2. to make a noise
3. noisy
4. to disturb by making a noise

Example sentences

• 他们吵架了。
  They quarreled.
• 跟他吵没用。
  It's no use arguing with him.
• 我们别吵了。
  Let's not squabble.
• 这儿太吵了。
  It's too noisy in here.
• 这儿蛮吵的。
  There's a lot of noise here.
• 什么吵醒你了?
  What woke you up?

Words starting with 吵

• 吵架chǎo jiàto quarrel; to have a row; quarrel
• 吵醒chǎo xǐngto wake sb up with a noise
• 吵闹chǎo nàonoisy; raucous; to shout and scream
• 吵吵嚷嚷chǎo chǎo rǎng rǎngto make an (unnecessary) racket (idiom)
• 吵嘴chǎo zuǐto quarrel
• 吵吵chāo chaoto make a racket; to quarrel
• 吵杂chǎo zánoisy
• 吵闹声chǎo nào shēngnoise
• 吵嚷chǎo rǎngto make a racket; clamour; uproar

Words containing 吵

• 争吵zhēng chǎoto quarrel; dispute
• 大吵大闹dà chǎo dà nàoto shout and scream (idiom); to kick up a fuss; to make a scene
• 又吵又闹yòu chǎo yòu nàoto make a lot of noise; to be disorderly

Characters built on 少

These share the phonetic component 少 (shǎo), which is why their readings rhyme. Learning them as a family is far cheaper than learning them one at a time.

• 抄chāoto make a copy; to plagiarize; to search and seize
• 炒chǎoto sauté; to stir-fry; to speculate (in real estate etc); to scalp; to hype up
• 钞chāomoney; paper money; variant of 抄

Characters that look like 吵

Easy to confuse on sight. Compare them side by side once and the pair stops costing you.

• 步bùa step; a pace; walk
• 吻wěnkiss; to kiss; mouth
• 纱shācotton yarn; muslin
• 咕gū(onomatopoeia) for the sound of a bird, an empty stomach etc
• 咔kǎ(used as phonetic "ka")
• 呤língused in 呤呤

Sounds the same

Read chǎo, tone for tone, but written differently.

• 炒to sauté; to stir-fry; to speculate (in real estate etc); to scalp; to hype up

Where 吵 is taught

In the GraphChinese course it is part of Social relationships & family (HSK 4), each one a topic in the dependency graph of HSK 1–6 that opens only once its prerequisites are solid.

Go deeper

• Every HSK 4 word, with the rest of its level.
• How characters are built from components.
• How to learn Chinese characters.
• The four tones and the neutral tone, to read chǎo correctly.
• Look up another word in the free dictionary.