爱

See also 愛

Translingual

Stroke order

Simplified from 愛 (心 → 一)

Han character

爱 (radical 87 爪+6, 10 strokes, cangjie input 月月大水 (BBKE), composition ⿳⺤冖友)

1. love, be fond of, like

References

• KangXi: not present, would follow page 689, character 9
• Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 3, page 2033, character 11
• Unihan data for U+7231

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Cantonese

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɔːi˧/

Hanzi

爱 (traditional 愛, jyutping ngoi3, oi3, Yale ngoi3, oi3)

1. love

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Mandarin

simpl.		爱
trad.		愛

Pronunciation

• audio

  (file)

• IPA: [ ai˥˩ ]

Hanzi

爱 (traditional 愛, pinyin ài (ai4), Wade-Giles ai⁴)

Noun

爱 (simplified, Pinyin ài, traditional 愛)

1. (Beginning Mandarin) love

Verb

爱 (simplified, Pinyin ài, traditional 愛)

1. (Beginning Mandarin) to love; to be fond of

   ni ai ta ma? "Do you love her/him?"

   ta ai shuohua. "He likes to talk."

   wo bu ai chi zhurou. "I don't like to eat pork."

Usage notes

When the object of the verb is a person, 爱 ài usually refers to romantic love. When used like this, older Mandarin speakers often describe the use of this term as overly 肉麻 (ròumá, adj. something that gives you the creeps, extremely melodramatic). For this reason, the word trad. 喜歡, simpl. 喜欢 (xǐhuān, to like) might be used instead. The word 喜欢 xǐhuān literally means "to like", but when used in a romantic context, can (but does not always) mean "to love." However, Mandarin speakers born since the 1970s are now using the verb 爱 ài much more often than was socially acceptable in the past.

Compounds

爱别离苦 爱不释手 爱才如命 爱财 爱巢 爱称 爱宠 爱答不理, 爱答不理的 爱戴

爱尔兰 爱抚 爱国 爱国主义 爱好 爱河 爱护 爱克斯光 爱克斯射线 爱理不理

爱怜 爱恋 爱侣 爱美 爱面子 爱莫能助 爱慕 爱卿 爱情 爱人

爱人儿 爱沙尼亚 爱神 爱斯基摩人 爱窝窝 爱屋及乌 爱惜 爱小 爱心 爱悦 爱憎

References

• 2000, Jingmin (ed.) Shao, HSK Dictionary (HSK汉语水平考试词典) (in Mandarin/English), Shanghai: Huadong Teachers College Publishers, ISBN 7561720785:

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Min Nan

simpl.		爱
trad.		愛

Pronunciation

• IPA: [ ai˨˩ ]

Noun

爱 (simplified, POJ ài, traditional 愛)

1. love

Verb

爱 (simplified, POJ ài, traditional 愛)

1. to love; to like; to be fond of
2. want; must; need
   • 2005: anon. zh-min-nan:wikipedia:User_talk:Wdshu#Hoklo_Dictionary_with_Unicode

     有一点爱注意的，都是Wikipedia是Unicode的环境

     Ū 1 tiám ài chù-ì--ê, tō-sī Wikipedia sī Unicode ê khoân-kéng

     There's one thing you must bear in mind, which is that Wikipedia is a Unicode environment

See also

• (Mandarin) 要 (yào) want; must; need

References

• "愛" (in Taiwanese/English), On-line Taiwanese/Mandarin Dictionary (台文／華文線頂辭典). URL accessed on 2011-01-29.