Legs Radical (儿) — Characters, Meaning and Practice Worksheet
儿 is the legs radical. It appears in 10 of the most common Chinese characters — these 10 are the ones worth learning first, and the worksheet below gives every one of them a pinyin header, a stroke-by-stroke model and blank Tianzige grids to copy into.
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What does 儿 mean?
Legs radical · 儿 ér · 2 strokes · son; a pair of legs
It usually appears at the bottom of the character. The Origin column below shows what each character's parts do — many take their meaning from the radical, some take their sound from the other half.
Shapes: 儿
儿 itself: Simplified form of 兒, a picture of a child; compare 人
10 common characters with 儿
Ranked by how often they appear in real written Chinese. Every character links to its own page with a stroke-order animation and example words.
| Character | Pinyin | Meaning | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| 见 | jiàn | see, meet | Simplified form of 見; a man 儿 with the eye 目 emphasized |
| 先 | xiān | first, earlier | Someone stepping 止 in front of another person 儿 |
| 四 | sì | four | A child 儿 in a room with four walls 囗 |
| 元 | yuán | [Chinese currency unit] yuan | A man 儿 with two lines emphasizing their head 二 |
| 养 | yǎng | keep, raise (animals, etc.); provide for, support (a family); give birth to; develop (a habit); rest, maintain | 羊 supplies the sound |
| 竟 | jìng | [expressing unexpectedness] actually | A person 儿 finishing a musical piece 音 |
| 免 | miǎn | excuse from, waive, exempt; dismiss; avoid | |
| 兄 | xiōng | elder brother; [preceded by a surname to be used as a courtesy term of address between male friends] | Older brother 儿 speaking 口 to younger ones |
| 允 | yǔn | just; fair; to permit; to allow | |
| 匹 | pǐ | [measure word for horses and mules, etc.]; [measure word for bolts of cloth] | A roll of cloth |
Related Radicals
- 二Two radical · èr17 common characters · two; a pair of horizontal lines
- 亠Lid radical26 common characters · the dot-and-line “lid” on top of a character
- 亻Person radical · rén115 common characters · person; people
- 八Eight radical · bā44 common characters · eight; a pair dividing left and right
- 冂Frame radical · jiōng18 common characters · an open frame; borders
- 冖Cover radical · mì18 common characters · a cover
Create Your Own Chinese Worksheet
The download above is fixed; the generator is not. Turn any character list, sentence or textbook section into a printable worksheet — grid style, paper size and header are yours to pick.