人
person; people
HSK level
- Pinyin
- rén
- Part of speech
- noun
- Level
- HSK 1
- Strokes
- 2
- Register
- neutral
- Measure word
- 个 / 位
- In episodes
- 3
Stroke order for 人
人 is written with 2 strokes. The animation replays automatically.
What does 人 mean?
人 (rén) is the basic noun for 'person' or 'people' and one of the first characters every Chinese child learns to write — it's just two strokes, picturing a standing person with legs apart.
It's both singular and plural: 一个人 means 'one person,' 很多人 means 'many people,' and bare 人 in context can mean 'humans / mankind.' It pairs with country names to form nationality words: 中国人 (Chinese person), 美国人 (American), 法国人 (French person).
It also appears in countless compounds: 男人 (man), 女人 (woman), 家人 (family member), 大人 (adult). In English the line between 'person' and 'people' depends on number; in Chinese 人 covers both, and the measure word (个 for casual, 位 for polite) does the counting work.
Memory hook: Two strokes — legs of a standing figure. Literally a stick-figure person.
Hear 人 in real episodes
人 appears in 3 Fluentide podcast episodes at natural native speed. Each sentence plays at the easiest difficulty it exists in — switch it to hear the same moment at your level, with full pinyin and English throughout.
Harold Moore 是一个做菜的人。
Harold Moore is a person who cooks.
Top Chefs Cook Fine Food and Reach for Taco Bell After Work
有人说，要走一万步。
Some people say you should walk 10,000 steps.
Must You Walk 10,000 Steps? Research Finds Benefits Around 7,000
Yu是Hubei的一个人。
Yu is a person from Hubei.
A Hubei Man Copies Tomb-Robbing Novels and Gets Twelve Years in Prison
Example sentences
我是中国人。
Wǒ shì Zhōngguó rén.
I'm Chinese.
neutral
这儿有很多人。
Zhèr yǒu hěn duō rén.
There are a lot of people here.
spoken
他是一个好人。
Tā shì yí ge hǎo rén.
He's a good person.
neutral
我一个人去。
Wǒ yí ge rén qù.
I'll go alone.
spoken
Common phrases with 人
Synonyms
人们 explicitly means 'people' (plural, generic), used in writing and formal contexts: 人们都喜欢 ('everyone likes'). Spoken Chinese usually just says 人 or 大家.
Don't confuse 人 with
入 means 'to enter' and looks almost identical to 人 — the top stroke goes the other way. 入 starts with the rightward stroke first; 人 starts with the leftward stroke. Tiny shape difference, completely different meaning.
Frequently asked questions
Related words from the same episodes
Acquire it by listening
Meet 人 again — in real Chinese, at your level.
You just saw 人 in 3 episodes. Fluentide keeps feeding you news episodes at your level, so this word — and thousands like it — resurface in real sentences until they stick. Full pinyin and translation every time. Free to start.