高兴
happy; glad
HSK level
- Pinyin
- gāoxìng
- Part of speech
- adjective
- Level
- HSK 1
- Strokes
- 16
- Register
- neutral
- In episodes
- 4
Stroke order for 高兴
高兴 is written with 16 strokes (高: 10, 兴: 6). The animation replays automatically.
What does 高兴 mean?
高兴 (gāoxìng) is the everyday Chinese adjective for 'happy' or 'glad' — specifically, the kind of pleased, cheerful feeling you have in a particular moment.
Unlike English 'happy,' which can describe a whole life ('a happy life'), 高兴 almost always refers to a present mood or a reaction to something good: meeting someone, getting a gift, hearing good news. For 'happy' in the deep, lasting sense — happy marriage, happy childhood — Chinese uses 幸福 (xìngfú) instead.
高兴 functions as both an adjective ('I'm happy') and a verb-like state ('it makes me happy'): 我很高兴, 见到你很高兴 ('nice to meet you,' literally 'meeting you very happy'). Note that the adjective usually takes 很 (hěn) in front in positive statements — 我很高兴, not 我高兴 — even though 很 doesn't really mean 'very' here.
Character by character
Memory hook: 'High mood' — literally 'high-spirits.' Your mood (兴) is high (高), so you're happy.
Hear 高兴 in real episodes
高兴 appears in 4 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.
公司的人都很高兴。
Everyone at the company was very happy.
Starship Reaches Orbit for the First Time, Deploys 26 Starlink Satellites — Then Comes Home Early
女孩子们看见老球员，很高兴，请她们写名字。
When the girls saw the old players, they were very happy and asked for their autographs.
The Real 'League of Their Own' Players Are in Their 90s — and Girls' Baseball Is Finally Booming
他们看了，很不高兴，晚上就睡不好了。
When they saw that, they got upset, and then they really couldn't sleep at night.
The Economist's Joke Memo: A Company Tries to Fix Its Staff's Sleep, and Everything Goes Wrong
可是有的人不高兴。
But some people are not happy.
Caviar Got Cheap Enough to Feed a Toddler — and a Big Reason Is Chinese Fish Farms
Example sentences
见到你很高兴。
Jiàndào nǐ hěn gāoxìng.
Nice to meet you.
neutral
今天我很高兴。
Jīntiān wǒ hěn gāoxìng.
I'm really happy today.
spoken
他不高兴，因为下雨了。
Tā bù gāoxìng, yīnwèi xià yǔ le.
He's not happy because it's raining.
neutral
妈妈听了很高兴。
Māma tīng le hěn gāoxìng.
Mom was very happy to hear it.
neutral
Common phrases with 高兴
Synonyms
开心 ('happy / cheerful') is more casual and emotionally warm than 高兴. Use 开心 with friends, in casual chat, and in playful contexts. 高兴 is slightly more neutral and works in any register.
快乐 means 'joyful / happy' in a broader, often longer-lasting way. Holiday greetings use 快乐 (生日快乐, 新年快乐), not 高兴. 高兴 is a momentary feeling; 快乐 is a state.
幸福 is the deep, life-level happiness — happy marriage, happy life. Don't use 高兴 for that meaning; it would sound trivial.
Don't confuse 高兴 with
Frequently asked questions
Related words from the same episodes
Acquire it by listening
Meet 高兴 again — in real Chinese, at your level.
You just saw 高兴 in 4 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.