Skip to content

穿

chuān

Putting on a coat and cutting through an alley — same verb

The picture The body goes into an opening, comes out the other side, and stays there. 穿 passes the body through an opening; 戴 rests something on top of the body.

Core verbs

Where the picture shows up in 穿

  1. an arm through a sleeve

    外面冷,多穿一件。

    wàimiàn lěng, duō chuān yí jiàn

    It's cold out — put on another layer.

    At the door, pushing an arm down a sleeve and pulling the collar up

  2. a foot through a cover

    进来请穿鞋套。

    jìnlái qǐng chuān xiétào

    Please put on shoe covers as you come in.

    At the clinic entrance, slipping a foot into the opening of a plastic cover

  3. staying passed-through

    她穿着白色的大衣。

    tā chuān zhe báisè de dàyī

    She's wearing a white coat.

    Pointing across the room at someone whose body sits inside a white coat

  4. the body through an alley

    从这里穿过去更快。

    cóng zhèli chuān guòqù gèng kuài

    It's faster if we cut through here.

    Slipping into a narrow gap between buildings and out onto the next street

  5. it won't go all the way

    这条裤子我穿不上。

    zhè tiáo kùzi wǒ chuān bu shàng

    These trousers don't fit me.

    The waistband stops at mid-thigh and will not go any higher

All of it in one picture

穿 is one picture: a body passing through an opening. An arm through a sleeve is putting on one more layer; a foot through a shoe cover is what the clinic asks for at the door. Stay passed-through and it becomes "she's wearing a white coat"; send the whole body through an alley and it becomes cutting across. Fail to get the legs all the way through and the trousers don't fit.

Next

See all Chinese core images