请

请 (qǐng) has two related uses at HSK 1. First, as 'please' — placed before a verb to make a polite request: 请坐 ('please sit'), 请等一下 ('please wait a moment'), 请问 ('may I ask'). Second, as the verb 'to invite / to treat (someone to something)': 我请你吃饭 ('I'll treat you to dinner'). Two things differ from English: first, 请 is not a polite tag added at the end like 'please' — it always goes at the START of the request, before the verb; second, the 'invite / treat' meaning carries the cultural sense of 'I'll pay,' so 我请你 in a restaurant context means 'it's on me.' The character has the 言 (speech) radical, fitting a word centered on polite verbal address.

Note: 请 softens any request and is the basic politeness marker in spoken Chinese. Drop it only with close friends or family — even then it's never wrong to keep it.

Memory hook: 请 = 言 (speech) + 青 (blue/young) — politely speaking. Always at the front of the sentence in Chinese, never the end.