VocabularyHSK 3 · core

先生

xiānsheng

mister, sir

Part of speech · noun

Pattern visualization

先before

生life

Show stroke order animation

Numbers6 strokes · 4.1s

Numbers5 strokes · 3.4s

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Examples

王先生你好。
Hello, Mr. Wang.
先生,请问。
Excuse me, sir.

Collocations

王先生一位先生老先生

Mnemonic

先生 xiānsheng "Mr., sir, husband" — 先 (before) + 生 (born) = "born earlier". False friend: Korean seonsaeng / Japanese 先生 sensei = "teacher". ZH 先生 is "Mr." (any male); teacher is 老师 lǎoshī.

Quick check

JA 先生?