搬 (bān): to move (i.e. relocate oneself), to move (sth relatively heavy or bulky), to shift

搬 (bān) is a Chinese character meaning “to move (i.e. relocate oneself).” Classified as HSK Level 3 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 扌 (semantic) and 般 (phonetic). It ranks #1749 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 搬 hand. Its radical form 扌 (hand) appears in many related characters such as 手 (shǒu, hand), 打 (dǎ, hit, make), 找 (zhǎo, to look for).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to move (i.e. relocate oneself)
  2. to move (sth relatively heavy or bulky)
  3. to shift

Etymology & Origin

搬

pictophonetichand

Decomposition: ⿰扌般 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13

Practice writing 搬 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with 搬

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
搬家verbbān jiāto move house3

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
搬走verbbān zǒuto carry
搬运verbbān yùnto transport
搬运工nounbān yùn gōngporter
搬动verbbān dòngto move (sth) around
搬迁verbbān qiānto move
照搬verbzhào bānto copy
搬弄是非phrasebān nòng shì fēito incite a quarrel (idiom)
搬兵verbbān bīngto call for reinforcements
搬出去bān chū qùto move out (vacate)
行李搬运工xíng lǐ bān yùn gōngbaggage handler
搬起石头砸自己的脚proverbbān qǐ shí tou zá zì jǐ de jiǎohoisted by...
搬石头砸自己的脚phrasebān shí tou zá zì jǐ de jiǎoto move a stone and stub one's toe
搬用verbbān yòngto apply mechanically
搬口bān kǒuto pass on stories (idiom)
搬场bān chǎngto move (house)
27
Total compounds
93
As first character
4
As last character
4
As middle character

搬 appears in 27 compound words: 93 as the first character, 4 as the last, and 4 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with 搬 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

迁qiān
0.5799,905 co-occurrences
到dào
0.51128,622 co-occurrences
椅yǐ
0.50016 co-occurrences
昏hūn
0.45610 co-occurrences
至zhì
0.42511,918 co-occurrences
秋qiū
0.41912 co-occurrences
桌zhuō
0.41115 co-occurrences
梯tī
0.40810 co-occurrences
顿dùn
0.39815 co-occurrences
皇huáng
0.39510 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (3)

搬唇递舌bān chún dì shéHSK 7+

to pass on stories (idiom); to sow dissension; to blab; to tell tales

phrase
搬弄是非bānnòngshìfēiHSK 4+

to sow discord; to tell tales; to make mischief

phrase
搬砖砸脚bān zhuān zá jiǎoHSK 7+

to hurt oneself by one's own doing; to boomerang; to shoot oneself in the foot (idiom)

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

我们下周要搬到新办公室,离地铁站更近了。

Wǒmen xià zhōu yào bān dào xīn bàngōngshì, lí dìtiě zhàn gèng jìn le.

We are moving to a new office next week, closer to the subway station.

StheadlineFeb 2026

...记 未来5年提供19.6万公屋望止劏房户搬迁潮

. . . jì wèi lái 5 nián tí gōng 1 9 . 6 wàn gōng wū wàng zhǐ 劏 fáng hù bān qiān cháo

... In the next five years, 196,000 public housing units will be provided to stop the relocation of subdivided units

Hk01.comFeb 2026

...街地盤工人暈倒昏迷送院 事前疑行多層樓梯搬建築材料

. . . jiē dì 盤 gōng rén 暈 dǎo hūn mí sòng yuàn shì qián yí háng duō 層 樓 tī bān jiàn 築 cái liào

Construction worker collapses and loses consciousness on street, rushed to hospital; suspected to have carried building materials up multiple flights of stairs prior to incident.

UdnnewsindexFeb 2026

新北女搬家後金條不翼而飛 搬家工坦承行竊15萬元...

xīn běi nǚ bān jiā 後 jīn 條 bù yì ér 飛 bān jiā gōng tǎn chéng háng 竊 萬 yuán . . .

New Taipei woman lost gold bars after moving, and the mover admitted to stealing 15 yuan...

EttodayFeb 2026

黃騰浩退居幕後「忙搬桌椅」! 角頭團隊新作懷秋、吳念軒雙帥登...

黃 騰 hào tuì jū mù 後 máng bān zhuō yǐ ! jiǎo 頭 團 隊 xīn zuò 懷 qiū 吳 niàn 軒 雙 帥 dēng . . .

Huang Teng-hao steps behind the scenes to "busy moving tables and chairs"! The Angled Corner team's new project features two handsome leads, Hwai Qi and Wu Nian-xuan…

StheadlineFeb 2026

愛潑斯坦案—安德魯搬離皇家住所細節 曾用母親作「擋箭牌」:我...

愛 潑 sī tǎn àn ān dé 魯 bān 離 huáng jiā zhù suǒ 細 節 céng yòng mǔ 親 zuò 擋 jiàn pái wǒ . . .

Epstein Case—Details of Andrew's Move from Royal Residence: Once Used Mother as "Smokescreen": I...

Tatoeba

你真想搬去波士顿?

Nǐ zhēn xiǎng bān qù Bōshìdùn?

Do you really want to move to Boston?

Tatoeba

你是什么时候搬到柏林的呀?

Nǐ shì shénmeshíhou bān dào Bólín de ya?

When did you move to Berlin?

Tatoeba

你搬不动那台钢琴。

Nǐ bān bù dòng nà tái gāngqín.

You can't lift the piano.

Tatoeba

最近我搬到另一栋公寓。

Zuì jìn wǒ bān dào lìngyī dòng gōngyù.

Recently I moved to another apartment.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 扌 (hand) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced bān

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 搬 (bān) mean in Chinese?
搬 (bān) primarily means "to move (i.e. relocate oneself)." It is classified as HSK Level 3, making it a beginner-level character. It ranks #1749 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 搬 and 盘?
搬 (bān) and 盘 (pán) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 扌 vs 皿 (same 般 component).
How many strokes does 搬 have?
搬 is written with 13 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 搬?
The radical associated with 搬 is 扌 (hand). This radical appears in many characters related to hand.
What are the components of 搬?
搬 is composed of: 扌 (semantic), 般 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰扌般 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 搬?
Common words with 搬 include: 搬家 (bān jiā, "to move house"); 搬走 (bān zǒu, "to carry"); 搬运 (bān yùn, "to transport"); 搬运工 (bān yùn gōng, "porter"); 搬动 (bān dòng, "to move (sth) around"). There are over 27 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 搬 (bān)?
Several characters share the pronunciation bān: 办 (to take care of (a matter)), 半 (half), 般 (sort), 班 (team), and 5 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 搬 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 搬 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 搬 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear spoken pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.