How to Write 烫 (tàng) — Meaning “Scalding or to scald”

Imagine a pot of soup (汤) sitting on a fire (火) that is so hot it makes the pot "scalding" to touch. The top part 火 looks like flames above the soup, and you can remember that 烫 means "too hot to handle." This visual of fire heating soup helps link the shape to the meaning of scalding heat.

The top part 火 is written first with three strokes: dot, left-slanting stroke, then right-slanting stroke, not as a full fire character. The bottom part 汤 has a leftward horizontal stroke before the three-dot water radical on the left. A common mistake is making the top fire too wide or forgetting the small vertical stroke in the soup component on the right.

炅 (jiǒng) means "bright" and has 日 (sun) under fire, not the soup component — it implies sunlight or brilliance. 炆 (wén) means "slow fire" and has 文 (text) under fire, used for gentle heating like simmering. In contrast, 烫 always includes 汤 (soup) under fire, focusing on extreme heat that burns or scalds.

烫 is commonly used in everyday situations: 烫手 means something is too hot to hold, and 烫发 refers to getting a hair perm using heat. In Chinese culture, being careful with 烫 is important in kitchens and tea ceremonies, as hot water and soups are common. The word also appears in warnings like "小心烫伤" (beware of scalding).

Common words containing 烫 include: 烫手 (tàng shǒu) — Scalding to the touch; 烫发 (tàng fà) — To perm hair; 滚烫 (gǔn tàng) — boiling hot; scalding.