sports; exercise; to exercise
HSK level
运动 (yùndòng) covers both 'sports' and 'exercise / physical activity' — and it can also be a verb 'to exercise / to work out.'
As a noun: 我喜欢运动 ('I like sports / exercise'); as a verb: 我每天运动 ('I exercise every day'). To say 'do/play a specific sport,' Chinese uses different verbs: 打 for ball-and-hand sports (打篮球, 打网球), 踢 for kicking (踢足球), 游 for swimming, 跑 for running. So 运动 is the umbrella word, not the action verb.
运动 also has a third sense: 'movement' as in social/political movement (五四运动 — 'May Fourth Movement') and a fourth sense in physics: 'motion.' Related noun 运动员 (yùndòngyuán) means 'athlete'; 运动会 (yùndònghuì) is a 'sports meet / track meet.'
Character by character
Memory hook: Two 'move' characters stacked — moving + moving = exercise. 运 has the walking radical 辶, like 'movement on the go.'
运动 appears in 3 Fluentide podcast episodes at natural native speed — each with the full Chinese script, pinyin, and line-by-line English translation.
我每天都做运动。
Wǒ měi tiān dōu zuò yùndòng.
I exercise every day.
spoken
你喜欢什么运动？
Nǐ xǐhuan shénme yùndòng?
What sports do you like?
spoken
运动对身体很好。
Yùndòng duì shēntǐ hěn hǎo.
Exercise is very good for the body.
neutral
他是一个有名的运动员。
Tā shì yí ge yǒumíng de yùndòngyuán.
He's a famous athlete.
neutral
运动 is written with 13 strokes (运: 7, 动: 6). Tap replay to watch each character drawn again.
Shares 运 but means 'luck / fortune.' 运 has multiple senses; in 运动 it's 'movement,' in 运气 it's 'fortune.' Don't transfer the meaning.
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