部首radical (舟)部件component (rest of character)书写your drawing
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字源zìyuánEtymology & Structure
字源洞见 zìyuán dòngjiàn · Etymological Insight
船 splits cleanly down the middle: 船 = 舟 + 㕣. On the left stands 舟 (zhōu), the boat radical, a narrow hull seen from the side with its planks lashed across. On the right sits the phonetic 㕣 (yǎn), stacked from 几 over 口. The hull tells you what the word is about; the right side once cued how it sounded. This is a textbook pictophonetic, the most common way Chinese built its working vocabulary.
舟 is the older, more elemental word for a boat: in oracle-bone script it is a curved dugout, a single hollowed log riding the current. As watercraft grew from a paddled log into framed, multi-plank ships, the spoken language needed a fresh word, and writing answered by pinning the new sound onto the trusted hull. The seal form already shows the two halves side by side exactly as the modern glyph does, the boat firmly on the left where radicals like to live.
From the literal hull the sense never wandered far. 船 stayed anchored in the physical: anything that floats and carries, from a flat river barge to a steel ocean liner. Where 舟 drifted toward the poetic and the antique (think of a lone fisherman's skiff in a Tang quatrain), 船 became the plain, everyday word a modern speaker reaches for at the ferry terminal or the shipyard.
Japanese borrowed the graph as 船 (fune, sen) and Korean as 선 (seon), both keeping the boat radical and the maritime meaning intact across the Sinosphere.
船舶chuánbóVessels & Craft
船 sits at the head or tail of a compound and names the kind of craft. The modifier in front says what powers it (帆 sail, 轮 wheel/engine) or what it does (渔 fishing); 船只 stays generic, the umbrella term for shipping of every sort.
船只chuánzhīvessels, shipping (collective)
N 名词 míngcí
船 (boat) + 只, here a classifier turned collective suffix. The pair names boats as a category rather than one hull, the way 车辆 names vehicles in bulk. Standard in port notices, news, and maritime law.
港口里停着各种船只。
Gǎngkǒu lǐ tíngzhe gè zhǒng chuánzhī.
All kinds of vessels are moored in the harbor.
帆船fānchuánsailboat, sailing ship
N 名词 míngcí
帆 (sail) + 船 (boat): a boat driven by canvas. Covers everything from a small racing dinghy to the old treasure ships, and names the Olympic sport of sailing.
远处有一艘白色的帆船。
Yuǎnchù yǒu yì sōu báisè de fānchuán.
There is a white sailboat in the distance.
轮船lúnchuánsteamship, large powered ship
N 名词 míngcí
轮 (wheel) + 船 (boat): the wheel is the paddle wheel of the first steamers, so the word came to mean any large engine-driven ship. Today it is the everyday term for a big passenger or cargo liner.
辨析 biànxī · 轮船 vs. 帆船 轮船 runs on an engine and is large; 帆船 runs on wind and is usually small. Both are 船.
渔船yúchuánfishing boat
N 名词 míngcí
渔 (to fish) + 船 (boat): a boat worked for the catch. 渔 carries the water radical 氵, marking the act of fishing, distinct from 鱼 the fish itself.
天还没亮，渔船就出海了。
Tiān hái méi liàng, yúchuán jiù chūhǎi le.
Before dawn, the fishing boats had already put out to sea.
行船xíngchuánBoarding & Travel
上船shàng chuánto board a boat
VO 动宾 dòngbīn
上 (to go up onto) + 船 (boat): you step up onto a deck, so boarding is 上, and disembarking is 下船 (xià chuán). The same up/down logic governs 上车 / 下车 for vehicles.
请大家快点上船。
Qǐng dàjiā kuài diǎn shàng chuán.
Everyone please board the boat quickly.
船票chuánpiàoboat ticket, ferry ticket
N 名词 míngcí
船 (boat) + 票 (ticket): the fare for a passage by water, parallel to 车票 (bus/train ticket) and 机票 (plane ticket).
船 (boat) + 长 (zhǎng, chief): the head of the ship. The same 长 head-of suffix gives 校长 (principal) and 队长 (team leader).
船长决定提前返航。
Chuánzhǎng juédìng tíqián fǎnháng.
The captain decided to turn back early.
成语chéngyǔIdioms & Set Phrases
水涨船高shuǐ zhǎng chuán gāowhen the water rises the boat rises too: gains that lift everything along with the tideOriginally a Chán Buddhist phrase. Used when one rising element pulls others up with it, whether prices, status, or a whole industry.
顺水推船shùn shuǐ tuī chuánpush the boat along with the current: go with the flow and make the easy moveWhen circumstances already lean your way, you give a light push and take the credit. Often used for a decision that costs nothing because the moment favors it.
借风使船jiè fēng shǐ chuánborrow the wind to sail the boat: turn outside conditions to your own endsA close cousin of 顺水推船, stressing the borrowed force: you let someone else's momentum carry your own plan forward.
船坚炮利chuán jiān pào lìsturdy ships and sharp guns: overwhelming naval and military mightA late-Qing phrase for the foreign gunboats whose strength forced the treaty ports open. Now shorthand for raw technological force.
记忆法 jìyìfǎ · Master Retention Image
Picture a wooden hull cutting across grey water at dawn, the planks of 舟 lashed tight on the left of the glyph, taking the spray. Crammed against the cabin on the right is a small mouth 口 under a low table 几, the phonetic 㕣 riding along like a passenger who paid only for the sound of the word, not the work of carrying it. The hull does the meaning; the passenger does the noise.
Hold that split and the compounds fall into place. Hang a sail in front and you get 帆船; bolt on an engine wheel and you get 轮船; send it out for the catch and it is a 渔船. The boat radical never moves, so every craft on the page is still recognizably a 船 the moment you spot 舟 on the left.
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