Welcome to ChineseFrequencyDictionary.com. Enter a Chinese character or compound Chinese word to lookup. If a valid dictionary entry is found, frequency information will be shown below:

Chinese Character/Word:

Definition(s) for: 什么

Hanzi Pinyin Definition(s)
什么 shén me - what?
- something; anything

List Ranking:

Where rank 1 is most common, and higher numbers are less common.

HSK 2 Level (2012) HSK 3 Band (2022) SUBTLEX-CH BeijingUni Global BeijingUni Weibo
1 1 17 94 61

Individual Character Breakdown:

Simp Pinyin Eng
shén- what
shí- ten (used in fractions, writing checks etc)
- assorted
- miscellaneous
yāo- surname Yao
yāo- youngest
- most junior
- tiny
- one (unambiguous spoken form when spelling out numbers, esp. on telephone or in military)
- one or ace on dice or dominoes
- variant of 吆[yao1], to shout
- exclamatory final particle
ma- interrogative final particle
me- suffix, used to form interrogative 什麼|什么[shen2 me5], what?, indefinite 這麼|这么[zhe4 me5] thus, etc
me- variant of 麼|么[me5]

Other Words Containing 什么

Sorted by the 'SUBTLEX-CH' rank because that seems like the most reliable. Words without a SUBTLEX-CH rank are ignored for being too rare.

Word HSK 2 Level (2012) HSK 3 Band (2022) SUBTLEX-CH BeijingUni Global BeijingUni Weibo
什么 1 1 17 94 61
为什么 3 2 86 515 252
没什么 - 1 371 2,948 1,721
干什么 - 1 892 4,536 3,182
什么样 - 2 1,015 2,879 2,345
什么的 - - 2,828 3,594 1,295