化 huà to make into; to change into; to transform

Made up of [匕 bǐ spoon; ladle radical 21, 亻 rén Person (radical) radical 9]
Made with 4 strokes.
Can be thought of as a person tumbling over to suggest change and transformation. Original form was of two knives reflecting use of money in the form of knives - and concept of exchange.

Related characters


Also uses 匕 bǐ component: 北 běi (north) 此 cǐ (this) ; 华 huá (splendid) ; 花 huā (flower) ; 老 lǎo (venerable) ; 呢 ne (and you?) ; 能 néng (to be able to) ; 死 sǐ (die) ; 它 tā (it)
Also uses 亻 rén component: 俩 bǐng (both) 倡 chàng (to initiate) ; 代 dài (replace) ; 但 dàn (but) ; 倒 dào (fall) ; 仿 fǎng (to imitate) ; 份 fèn (portion) ; 供 gōng (to provide) ; 估 gū (estimate) ; 何 hé (what) ; 候 hòu (wait) ; 侯 hóu (nobleman) ; 华 huá (splendid) ; 花 huā (flower) ; 健 jiàn (healthy) ; 两 liǎng (pair) ; 们 mén (s) ; 你 nǐ (you) ; 仁 rén (humane) ; 什 shén (what) ; 他 tā (he) ; 位 wèi (position) ; 仙 xiān (immortal) ; 信 xìn (letter) ; 夜 yè (night) ; 亿 yì (100,000,000) ; 攸 yōu (distant) ; 值 zhí (value) ; 住 zhù (to live) ; 传 zhuàn (biography) ; 作 zuò (to do) ; 做 zuò (to make)

Sounds same

话 huà (speech) ; 画 huà (to draw)

Different tone

花 huā (flower) ; 华 huá (splendid)

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Pronunciation

Sound file kindly provided by shtooka.net ➚ under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License

Cities

通化 Tonghua, Jilin
绥化 Suihua, Heilongjiang

Proverbs

桔化为枳 jú huà wèi zhǐ People change according to their environment. According to a story orange trees gave different types of fruit depending on whether they were planted north or south of a river.