Chinese Characters Starting with "Y start"

Every character has an origin. Discover the pictographs, myths, and history behind each Chinese character — with pinyin, stroke order, HSK level, and audio pronunciation.

yáo

This character is literally three 'earth' radicals

yīn

This rare 9-stroke character hides a Confucian sec

yǎng

This rare character hides a philosophical whisper:

This six-stroke character looks like 'earth + snak

This character isn’t drawn with ink — it’s draw

This 'horse stable' character hides a Zhou dynasty

This 'prison' character hasn’t changed in 3,000 y

yòu

This ‘park’ isn’t for picnics — it’s a walled

This 7-stroke character combines 'mouth' and 'drea

yīng

This delicate bird-call character hides a wine jug

yín

This 18-stroke rarity looks like a mouth trapped u

This ‘herd’ character doesn’t show animals—it

This 16-stroke mouth-shaped sigh has echoed throug

yuě

A 9-stroke mouth + motion glyph born from ancient

yǎn

A 2,000-year-old poetic verb that doesn’t mean ‘

This character’s right side isn’t ‘world’ — i

A Cantonese-only 'thing' character born from stree

yōng

This 13-stroke ‘goose-coo’ character hasn’t cha

Born in Ming-era teahouses—not ancient bronzes—

yàn

This character doesn’t exist — 喭 is a phantom g

yāo

This character doesn’t name the insect — it capt

yīn

Looks like 'mouth + sound'—but it's actually 'mou

yóng

A rare literary character depicting fish mouths so

yān

This 'correct' character doesn't exist in classica

This character doesn’t exist — no ancient inscri

Born not from ancient bronzes but from Ming-era st

This rare literary character isn’t about heartbea

yàn

This character’s two mouths facing each other in

This delicate 9-stroke character isn’t just ‘squ

This 'surprise' interjection isn’t ancient—it’s

yōu

This 'Oh!' isn’t shouted — it’s a hushed, eight

This character doesn’t exist in ancient texts —

yāo

This six-stroke shout — 口 + 幺 — originated as

yǎn

This 11-stroke character is a living fossil: its a

This elegant 8-stroke fossil — 厓 — is the lyric

yǒu

This 7-stroke character isn’t just a wine contain

yǎn

This 9-stroke character hides in plain sight: its

This character began as a Bronze Age spouted basin

This 'toilsome' character hides a hunter's arrow (

This 'leisurely' character hides a roof and a sigh