The character 生 (shēng): to be born

A garden pond is covered with broad green lotus leaves under a weeping willow. In the left foreground one large pink lotus is open and two buds are still closed on their stems. Behind, a humpbacked stone bridge and a pavilion with red pillars and upturned tiled roofs. Standing above the water at the right, the character 生 in dark brown: a small oblique hooked at the top of the stem, then three horizontal bars of growing length that the stem runs through.

Pronunciation: shēng
Strokes: 5
Radical: 生
Made of: 牛一

What it means

to be born; to give birth; life; to grow; raw; uncooked; student

Where its shape comes from

Xu Shen dispatches it in a single line: "that which advances; it pictures grass and trees coming up above the earth". The earliest inscriptions show precisely that, a three branched shoot standing on a ground line, the very line that would later become 土 (tǔ), earth. The bar at the bottom is the ground, and everything above it is the plant. A pictogram, with no argument about it.

Source: Xu Shen, Shuowen Jiezi (121 CE); the Chinese University of Hong Kong character database.

A way to remember it

Three bars run through by an upright shaft, with a short stroke hooked on at the top. Count the bars: with TWO of them you have written 牛, the ox you met earlier; this one needs THREE.

This is a memory aid, not the origin of the character.

Words it appears in

学生 xué sheng · HSK 1 student; schoolchild
先生 xiān sheng · HSK 1 teacher; gentleman; sir; mister (Mr.); husband; (dialect) doctor; CL:位[wei4]
医生 yī shēng · HSK 1 doctor; CL:個|个[ge4],位[wei4],名[ming2]
生日 shēng rì · HSK 2 birthday; CL:個|个[ge4]
生病 shēng bìng · HSK 2 to fall ill
生气 shēng qì · HSK 3 to get angry; to be furious; vitality; liveliness

Writing it

See the stroke order of 生, animated stroke by stroke.