先
先 in English
- beforehand / first / earlier / at first / originally / for the time being / for now / (prefix) my late (in referring to deceased relatives older than oneself)
Stroke order
Show the animation Stroke data from Make Me a Hanzi, derived from the Arphic PL fonts under the Arphic Public License.
How it used to be written
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Oracle bone script 商 -
Clerical script 東漢 - See all 16 forms
Forms, sources and dates: the 字形演變 database of 小學堂, Academia Sinica, public domain (CC0).
Examples
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“一只猫？”老先生问。
"A cat?" asked the old man.
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Davis先生看上去很累。
Mr Davis looks very tired.
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Meier先生以为Neumann一家去度假了。
Mr. Meier thought the Neumann family was away on vacation.
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一个从俄勒冈州来的朋友，布朗先生明天会来拜访我们。
Mr. Brown a friend from Oregon, will visit us tomorrow.
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万一来不了，我会先给你打电话。
In case I can’t come, I’ll give you a call beforehand.
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他决定不买那个房子了，首先是因为太贵了，其实是因为离他的办公室太远了。
He decided not to buy the house, because in the first place it was too expensive, and in the second place it was too far from his office.