讶 (yà): astounded

讶 (yà) is a Chinese character meaning “astounded.” Classified as HSK Level 6 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 讠 (semantic) and 牙 (phonetic). It ranks #2114 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 讶 speech. Its radical form 讠 (speech) appears in many related characters such as 认 (rèn, to recognize, to admit), 记 (jì, to remember, to record), 识 (shí, to know, knowledge).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. astounded

Etymology & Origin

讶

pictophoneticspeech

Decomposition: ⿰讠牙 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6

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

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with 讶

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
惊讶adjectivejīng yàamazed6

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
讶异verbyà yìto be surprised
怪讶adjectiveguài yàastonished
3
Total compounds
33
As first character
67
As last character
0
As middle character

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

惊jīng
0.7482,882 co-occurrences
感gǎn
0.423682 co-occurrences
颇pō
0.39330 co-occurrences
令lìng
0.385689 co-occurrences
现xiàn
0.354280 co-occurrences
很hěn
0.330201 co-occurrences
惑huò
0.33016 co-occurrences
到dào
0.326685 co-occurrences
发fā
0.317254 co-occurrences
人rén
0.308814 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他讶言谨慎,从不说没有根据的话。

tā yà yán jǐn shèn , cóng bù shuō méi yǒu gēn jù de huà .

He was careful with his words and never spoke without evidence.

少数派Aug 2026

我心疼雪穗的经历,惊讶这个故事的真相,也对其中的部分情节感到反胃。

wǒ xīn téng xuě 穗 de jīng lì , jīng yà zhè gè gù shì de zhēn xiāng , yě duì qí zhōng de bù fēn qíng jié gǎn dào fǎn wèi .

I felt for Yukiko’s ordeal, was shocked by the truth behind this story, and found some of the details sickening.

奇客SolidotAug 2026

火星岩石中发现刚玉令人惊讶,因为火星条件很难解释它们是如何形成的。

huǒ xīng yán shí zhōng fā xiàn gāng yù lìng rén jīng yà , yīn wéi huǒ xīng tiáo jiàn hěn nán jiě shì tā men shì rú hé xíng chéng de .

The discovery of corundum in Martian rocks is surprising because Martian conditions make it difficult to explain how they formed.

中国新闻网·体育Jul 2026

有时,我会对这些决定感到惊讶;有时,我赞同;有时,我并不赞同。

yǒu shí , wǒ huì duì zhè xiē jué dìng gǎn dào jīng yà ; yǒu shí , wǒ zàn tóng ; yǒu shí , wǒ bìng bù zàn tóng .

Sometimes, I’m surprised by these decisions; sometimes, I agree with them; and sometimes, I don’t.

LtnApr 2026

中职》得知林哲瑄退休很惊讶 罗力以前辈身分给建议:不要哭

zhōng zhí dé zhī lín zhé 瑄 tuì xiū hěn jīng yà luó lì yǐ qián bèi shēn fēn gěi jiàn yì : bù yāo kū

"Zhongzhi": Surprised to Hear Lin Zhexuan Is Retiring; Luo Li Offers Advice as a Senior: "Don't Cry"

Am730Mar 2026

林奕匡新歌成5台冠军歌 惊讶囝囝超爱自己作品

lín 奕 匡 xīn gē chéng 5 tái guàn jūn gē jīng yà 囝 囝 chāo ài zì jǐ zuò pǐn

Lam Yik-kwong's New Song Tops the Charts on Five Stations; He's Surprised His Son Loves His Work So Much

Tatoeba

汤姆惊讶得没有反应。

Tāngmǔ jīngyà de méiyǒu fǎnyìng.

Tom was too surprised to react.

Tatoeba

汤姆、玛丽、约翰和爱丽丝都显得有些惊讶。

Tāngmǔ, Mǎlì, Yuēhàn hé àilìsī dōu xiǎnde yǒuxiē jīngyà.

Tom, Mary, John and Alice all looked somewhat surprised.

Tatoeba

“你怎么来了?”他惊讶地问我。

"nǐ zěnme lái le?" tā jīngyà de wèn wǒ.

"What are you doing here?" he asked me in surprise.

Tatoeba

感到惊讶、感到惊奇就是明白的开始。

Gǎndào jīngyà, gǎndào jīngqí jiùshì míngbai de kāishǐ.

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 讠 (speech) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced yà

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 讶 (yà) mean in Chinese?
讶 (yà) primarily means "astounded." It is classified as HSK Level 6, making it an advanced character. It ranks #2114 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 讶 have?
讶 is written with 6 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 讶?
The radical associated with 讶 is 讠 (speech). This radical appears in many characters related to speech.
What are the components of 讶?
讶 is composed of: 讠 (semantic), 牙 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰讠牙 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 讶?
Common words with 讶 include: 惊讶 (jīng yà, "amazed"); 讶异 (yà yì, "to be surprised"); 怪讶 (guài yà, "astonished"). There are over 3 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 讶 (yà)?
Several characters share the pronunciation yà: 呀 (ah (used to express surprise)), 鸦 (crow), 芽 (bud), 亚 (Asia), and 5 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 讶 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 讶 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 讶 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.