文章
article; essay
HSK level
- Pinyin
- wénzhāng
- Part of speech
- noun
- Level
- HSK 4
- Strokes
- 15
- Register
- neutral
- Measure word
- 篇 / 段
Stroke order for 文章
文章 is written with 15 strokes (文: 4, 章: 11). The animation replays automatically.
What does 文章 mean?
文章 (wénzhāng) is a noun meaning a written piece of prose — an article, essay, or composition.
It covers newspaper articles, blog posts, academic papers, and school compositions, so it is broader than English 'article' and closer to 'a piece of writing.' The default measure word is 篇 (piān), not 个. Two things surprise English speakers.
First, 文章 does not mean 'literature' in the artistic sense — that is 文学 (wénxué); 文章 is any structured prose. Second, it carries a common figurative use: 做文章 or 大做文章 means to deliberately exploit or make a fuss over an issue, and 文章 alone can mean the 'hidden agenda' behind something, as in 这里面有文章 ('there's more to this than meets the eye').
Note: Neutral in both speech and writing. Note the figurative idiom 做文章 (zuò wénzhāng), 'to make an issue of something,' which is decidedly colloquial.
Character by character
Memory hook: 文 (writing) + 章 (chapter) — a written chapter, i.e. an article.
Example sentences
这篇文章写得很好。
Zhè piān wénzhāng xiě de hěn hǎo.
This article is very well written.
neutral
我昨天在网上看了一篇有意思的文章。
Wǒ zuótiān zài wǎngshàng kàn le yì piān yǒu yìsi de wénzhāng.
I read an interesting article online yesterday.
spoken
老师让我们写一篇关于环境的文章。
Lǎoshī ràng wǒmen xiě yì piān guānyú huánjìng de wénzhāng.
The teacher had us write an article about the environment.
neutral
这件事情里面有文章。
Zhè jiàn shìqing lǐmiàn yǒu wénzhāng.
There's more to this matter than meets the eye.
spoken
Common phrases with 文章
Synonyms
论文 is specifically an academic paper or thesis with an argument. 文章 is any prose piece; use 论文 only for scholarly research writing.
作文 is a student's composition written as a school exercise. 文章 is the general word for any finished piece of writing, not tied to a classroom assignment.
Don't confuse 文章 with
文学 means 'literature' as an art form or field of study. 文章 is a single concrete piece of writing. 文学 is the discipline; 文章 is one text.
章节 means 'chapters and sections' of a book. 文章 is a standalone article. They share the character 章 but 章节 refers to divisions inside a longer work.
FAQ
Acquire it by listening
Meet 文章 again — in real Chinese, at your level.
Fluentide turns real news into Chinese listening at your exact level, so words like 文章 show up again and again in natural sentences — with pinyin and translation every time. No flashcards. Free to start.