我 wǒ — I, me; my
wǒ (third tone, dipping)
I, me; my
7 strokesRadical 戈Frequency #7
Pinyin
- wǒ (third tone, dipping)
I, me; my
Character breakdown
- 戈shape partno entry yetThe halberd 戈 on the right. The whole graph was originally one picture of a saw-toothed weapon; the split into parts is a convenience for writing, not an etymology.
Mnemonic
Not a compound at all: the character began as a drawing of a serrated halberd, and the word for that weapon happened to sound like the pronoun "I", so the picture was borrowed to write it and never handed back. What you can hold on to is the 戈 standing on the right — the same weapon appears on the right of 找 zhǎo, "to look for".
A memory aid written by HSK Guide editors. It is not an etymology and does not describe the historical origin of the character.