嘿 (hēi): hey

嘿 (hēi) is a Chinese character meaning “hey.” Classified as HSK Level 6 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 口 (semantic) and 黑 (phonetic). It ranks #2345 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 嘿 mouth. Its radical form 口 (mouth) appears in many related characters such as 口 (kǒu, mouth), 叫 (jiào, to call, to be called), 右 (yòu, (bound form) right).

Native pronunciation
HSK 6Radical: 口 mouth15 strokesFrequency #2345口 semantic黑 phonetic

Definitions

  1. hey

Etymology & Origin

嘿

pictophoneticmouth

Decomposition: ⿰口黑 (layout: left-right)

Components:口semantic黑phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
嘿嘿hēi hēi(onom.) he he
阿嘿颜ā hēi yánvariant of 阿黑顏|阿黑颜[a1 hei1 yan2]
嘿咻hēi xiū(coll.) to make love
3
Total compounds
67
As first character
0
As last character
33
As middle character

嘿 appears in 3 compound words: 67 as the first character, 0 as the last, and 33 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 嘿 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

呜wū
0.676480 co-occurrences
哎āi
0.672420 co-occurrences
呀yā
0.539258 co-occurrences
沽gū
0.539234 co-occurrences
呵hē
0.528150 co-occurrences
吼hǒu
0.44066 co-occurrences
咳hāi
0.43954 co-occurrences
朵duǒ
0.427180 co-occurrences
乖guāi
0.42560 co-occurrences
搞gǎo
0.418144 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

嘿，好久不见，你最近过得怎么样？

Hēi, hǎojiǔ bù jiàn, nǐ zuìjìn guò de zěnme yàng?

Hey, long time no see, how have you been recently?

Tatoeba

嘿，汤姆，我们可以买两箱生菜吗？

Hēi, Tāngmǔ, wǒmen kěyǐ mǎi liǎng xiāng shēngcài ma?

Hey, Tom, can we get two bins of lettuce?

Tatoeba

嘿-嘿... 那个地方的背后有一个故事。

Hēi - hēi... nàge dìfang de bèihòu yǒu yī gè gùshi.

He-heh... there's a tale behind that, for that place.

Tatoeba

嘿，你！你在干什么？

Hēi, nǐ! nǐ zài gànshénme?

Hey, you! What are you doing?

Tatoeba

嘿，你的狗刚咬了我。

Hēi, nǐ de gǒu gāng yǎo le wǒ.

Hey, your dog just bit me.

Tatoeba

嘿，玛丽，妳总是绑马尾。为什么不偶尔试试双马尾呢？

Hēi, Mǎlì, nǐ zǒngshì bǎng mǎwěi. wèishénme bù ǒu'ěr shì shì shuāng mǎwěi ne?

Hey Mary, you always wear a ponytail. Why not try pigtails every now and then?

Tatoeba

嘿，你！请稍候。

Hēi, nǐ! qǐng shāo hòu.

Hey you! Please wait.

Tatoeba

嘿，把你的电话号码给我。我会跟你讲讲海边和星星的故事。

Hēi, bǎ nǐ de diànhuà hàomǎ gěi wǒ. wǒ huì gēn nǐ jiǎng jiǎng hǎibiān hé xīngxing de gùshi.

Hey, give me your digits. I will tell you about the seaside and the stars.

Character Family

口 Radical Family — Characters sharing the mouth radical

啊a哎āi哀āi唉āi叭bā吧ba哺bǔ嘈cáo唱chàng嘲cháo

Related Characters

口kǒu叫jiào右yòu号hào吃chī同tóng名míng后hòu吗ma吧ba

Homophones — Characters pronounced hēi

黑hēi

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 嘿 (hēi) mean in Chinese?
嘿 (hēi) primarily means "hey." It is classified as HSK Level 6, making it an advanced character. It ranks #2345 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 嘿 have?
嘿 is written with 15 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 嘿?
The radical associated with 嘿 is 口 (mouth). This radical appears in many characters related to mouth.
What are the components of 嘿?
嘿 is composed of: 口 (semantic), 黑 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰口黑 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 嘿?
Common words with 嘿 include: 嘿嘿 (hēi hēi, "(onom.) he he"); 阿嘿颜 (ā hēi yán, "variant of 阿黑顏|阿黑颜[a1 hei1 yan2]"); 嘿咻 (hēi xiū, "(coll.) to make love"). There are over 3 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 嘿 (hēi)?
Several characters share the pronunciation hēi: 黑 (black). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 嘿 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 嘿 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 嘿 with real-time feedback

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

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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.