淌 (tǎng): to drip, to trickle, to shed (tears)

淌 (tǎng) is a Chinese character meaning “to drip.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 氵 (semantic) and 尚 (phonetic). It ranks #2743 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 淌 water. Its radical form 氵 (water) appears in many related characters such as 水 (shuǐ, water), 汉 (hàn, Han ethnic group), 汽 (qì, steam).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 氵 water11 strokesFrequency #2743氵 semantic尚 phonetic

Definitions

  1. to drip
  2. to trickle
  3. to shed (tears)

Etymology & Origin

淌

pictophoneticwater

Decomposition: ⿰氵尚 (layout: left-right)

Components:氵semantic尚phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

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

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
流淌liú tǎngto flow
淌口水tǎng kǒu shuǐto let saliva dribble from the mouth
淌下tǎng xiàto let drip
淌眼泪tǎng yǎn lèito shed tears
淌泪tǎng lèito shed a tear
5
Total compounds
80
As first character
20
As last character
0
As middle character

淌 appears in 5 compound words: 80 as the first character, 20 as the last, and 0 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 淌 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

流liú
0.5183,426 co-occurrences
血xiě
0.397354 co-occurrences
撕sī
0.39236 co-occurrences
河hé
0.391696 co-occurrences
倒dǎo
0.374174 co-occurrences
着zhe
0.367306 co-occurrences
滴dī
0.35430 co-occurrences
水shuǐ
0.351624 co-occurrences
向xiàng
0.339516 co-occurrences
泉quán
0.31478 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

孩子们喜欢在清澈的淌边玩耍，捉小鱼小虾。

hái zǐ men xǐ huān zài qīng 澈 de tǎng biān wán shuǎ , zhuō xiǎo yú xiǎo xiā .

Children love to play along the clear stream, catching little fish and shrimp.

Character Family

氵 Radical Family — Characters sharing the water radical

澳ào滨bīn濒bīn波bō沧cāng测cè潮cháo澈chè澄chéng池chí

Related Characters

水shuǐ汉hàn汽qì没méi洗xǐ渴kě永yǒng求qiú河hé油yóu

Homophones — Characters pronounced tǎng

堂táng倘tǎng躺tǎng趟tāng

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 淌 (tǎng) mean in Chinese?
淌 (tǎng) primarily means "to drip." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #2743 in character frequency.
What's the difference between 淌 and 常?
淌 (tǎng) and 常 (cháng) are often confused. confusable. The key distinguishing feature: 氵 vs 巾 (same 尚 component).
How many strokes does 淌 have?
淌 is written with 11 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 淌?
The radical associated with 淌 is 氵 (water). This radical appears in many characters related to water.
What are the components of 淌?
淌 is composed of: 氵 (semantic), 尚 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰氵尚 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 淌?
Common words with 淌 include: 流淌 (liú tǎng, "to flow"); 淌口水 (tǎng kǒu shuǐ, "to let saliva dribble from the mouth"); 淌下 (tǎng xià, "to let drip"); 淌眼泪 (tǎng yǎn lèi, "to shed tears"); 淌泪 (tǎng lèi, "to shed a tear"). There are over 5 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 淌 (tǎng)?
Several characters share the pronunciation tǎng: 堂 (hall), 倘 (if), 躺 (to recline), 趟 (to wade). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 淌 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 淌 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 淌 with real-time feedback

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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.