甲

jiǎ

Old HSK 5 HSK 3.0 character level 5 Character

甲 (jiǎ) means "first (of a series): Party A (甲方), Group A (甲组)". It is an HSK 3.0 level 5 word, and was HSK 5 in the old six-level list.

What 甲 means

first of the ten Heavenly Stems {十天干|shí tiān gān}
(used for an unspecified person or thing)
first (in a list, as a party to a contract etc)
letter "A" or roman "I" in list "A, B, C", or "I, II, III" etc
armor plating
shell or carapace
(of the fingers or toes) nail
bladed leather or metal armor (old)
ranking system used in the Imperial examinations (old)
civil administration unit in the baojia {保甲|bǎo jiǎ} system (old)
ancient Chinese compass point: 75°

Example sentences

我喜欢甲虫。

I like beetles.
我的指甲断了。

I broke a nail.
不要再咬指甲了。

Bù yào zài yǎo zhǐjia le.

Stop biting your nails.
桂林山水甲天下。

Guìlín shānshuǐ jiǎ tiānxià.

Guilin's sceneries are the most beautiful ones under the heaven.
她有咬指甲的习惯。

Tā yǒu yǎo zhǐjia de xíguàn.

She has a habit of biting her nails.
咬指甲是个坏习惯。

Biting your fingernails is a bad habit.

Words starting with 甲

Words containing 甲

Characters that look like 甲

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

Sounds the same

Read jiǎ, tone for tone, but written differently.

Where 甲 is taught

In the GraphChinese course it is part of Miscellaneous Objects, Places & Terms A (HSK 5), each one a topic in the dependency graph of HSK 1–6 that opens only once its prerequisites are solid.

Go deeper

Every HSK 5 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 jiǎ correctly.
Look up another word in the free dictionary.

Looking a word up is not learning it. GraphChinese puts all of HSK 1–6 into one dependency graph, teaches each piece only once its prerequisites are solid, and schedules reviews to land just before you would forget.

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