吗 — what?

Pinyin: ma · má · mǎ
Strokes: 6
HSK level: HSK 1
Handwriting: required

This character has more than one reading — ma, má, mǎ — and the pronunciation depends on the word it appears in. The list below gives the syllabus reading for each word.

How to write 吗: 6 strokes

Each cell adds one stroke to the previous ones, with the new stroke in red. Stroke order is not decoration: it sets the proportions of the character and makes handwriting legible to a reader. This character is on the HSK handwriting list, so the exam expects you to write it, not only recognise it.

吗 — 6 strokes, in writing order from left to right.

Build a printable practice sheet with 吗

Words with 吗 in the HSK syllabus: 1

Every word in the official 2026 syllabus that contains this character, with the level it is introduced at. Learning a character pays off through these: each one combines with the characters you already know.

吗ma—HSK 1

Glosses come from CC-CEDICT, used under CC BY-SA 4.0, and are the dictionary’s first sense rather than a translation chosen for context.