呐 (nà): battle cry, sentence-final particle (abbr. for 呢啊 or variant of 哪)

呐 (nà) is a Chinese character meaning “battle cry.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 口 (semantic) and 内 (phonetic). It ranks #2691 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 呐 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 7-9Radical: 口 mouth7 strokesFrequency #2691口 semantic内 phonetic

Definitions

  1. battle cry
  2. sentence-final particle (abbr. for 呢啊 or variant of 哪)

Etymology & Origin

呐

pictophoneticmouth

Decomposition: ⿰口内 (layout: left-right)

Components:口semantic内phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
呐喊nà hǎnshout
摇旗呐喊yáo qí nà hǎnto wave flags and shout battle cries (idiom)
唢呐suǒ nàsuona, Chinese shawm (oboe), used in festivals and processions or for military purposes
声呐shēng nàsonar (loanword)
锁呐suǒ nàsuona, Chinese shawm
5
Total compounds
20
As first character
60
As last character
20
As middle character

呐 appears in 5 compound words: 20 as the first character, 60 as the last, and 20 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 呐 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

喊hǎn
0.7032,436 co-occurrences
摇yáo
0.545480 co-occurrences
声shēng
0.5251,626 co-occurrences
旗qí
0.409492 co-occurrences
鼓gǔ
0.387204 co-occurrences
笛dí
0.37848 co-occurrences
统tǒng
0.374558 co-occurrences
拖tuō
0.34454 co-occurrences
吊diào
0.34342 co-occurrences
艺yì
0.337156 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

摇旗呐喊yáoqínàhǎnHSK 7+

to wave flags and shout battle cries; to cheer for someone

phrase

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

请呐下这杯茶，解解渴再继续工作。

qǐng nà xià zhè bēi chá , xiè xiè kě zài jì xù gōng zuò .

Please have a sip of this tea to quench your thirst before continuing your work.

Tatoeba

天呐，这么晚了。

Tiān nà, zhème wǎn le.

Geez, it's late.

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 nà

纳nà拿ná哪nǎ那nà

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 呐 (nà) mean in Chinese?
呐 (nà) primarily means "battle cry." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2691 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 呐 have?
呐 is written with 7 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 呐?
The radical associated with 呐 is 口 (mouth). This radical appears in many characters related to mouth.
What are the components of 呐?
呐 is composed of: 口 (semantic), 内 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰口内 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 呐?
Common words with 呐 include: 呐喊 (nà hǎn, "shout"); 摇旗呐喊 (yáo qí nà hǎn, "to wave flags and shout battle cries (idiom)"); 唢呐 (suǒ nà, "suona, Chinese shawm (oboe), used in festivals and processions or for military purposes"); 声呐 (shēng nà, "sonar (loanword)"); 锁呐 (suǒ nà, "suona, Chinese shawm"). There are over 5 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 呐 (nà)?
Several characters share the pronunciation nà: 纳 (to accept, to pay), 拿 (to take, to hold), 哪 (how), 那 ((specifier) that). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 呐 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 呐 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

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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.