阿 — prefix used before monosyllabic names, kinship terms etc to indicate familiarity

Pinyin: ā · ē
Strokes: 7
HSK level: HSK 3
Handwriting: recognition only

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

How to write 阿: 7 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. The syllabus asks you to recognise this character rather than write it by hand.

阿 — 7 strokes, in writing order from left to right.

Build a printable practice sheet with 阿

Words with 阿 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.

阿姨āyímaternal aunt; step-mother; childcare workerHSK 3

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.