诶 (éi) means "hey / oh" in Chinese. It has 9 strokes with the radical 讠.
Rated 3.7/5 in difficulty (challenging).
Appears in 1+ common words including 诶 (éi).
Due to its 9 strokes, Hanzi Writer's error detection shows 诶 requires focused practice — most learners need 10+ attempts for consistent accuracy.
Open Hanzi Writer to see the animated stroke order and practice writing 诶 with real-time feedback.
The character 诶 (éi) is written with 9 strokes. Follow the standard Chinese stroke order: top to bottom, left to right, outside before inside. The radical 讠 is one of its key components.
Practice the correct stroke order with the Hanzi Writer app to see animated stroke-by-stroke guidance with real-time feedback.
诶 means hey / oh.
The character 诶 combines the speech radical 讠 (言) with the phonetic component 矣 (yǐ), which originally depicted an arrow and was used for its sound. It functions as a phonetic loan character to represent the interjection 'hey' or 'oh' in spoken Chinese, with no direct pictorial link to its meaning.
💡 Memory Tip: Picture a speaker (讠) shouting 'Hey!' while pointing an arrow (矢) at a private (厶) target to get attention.
诶，你等等我。
éi nǐ děng děng wǒ
Hey, wait for me.
诶？你怎么在这儿？
éi nǐ zěn me zài zhè ér
Huh? Why are you here?
诶，我知道了。
éi wǒ zhī dào le
Okay, I got it.
Open Hanzi Writer to see the animated stroke order and practice writing 诶 with real-time feedback.
✨ Animated stroke order · Handwriting recognition · HSK-graded practice · Free to use
诶 is made of the radical 讠 (speech) on the left and the component 矣 on the right. Since 诶 is an interjection like "hey" or "oh", the speech radical shows it is related to spoken sounds.