meaning of 反

[AlexC]

Hello All,

By way of introduction, I'm 57, live in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, and have been teaching myself how to read Simplified Chinese for about 2 and 1/2 months now. The ability to use mouseover translation has really been a big help.

I have a question about this character: 反

The various websites give different English translations:

• turn over, return, revolt
  
• wrong side out or up; anti-
  
• instead
  
• close, shut, accord with, conform to, be equal to, together, jointly
  

I understand that most Chinese characters have multiple meanings. How is this character most often used?

Thanks.

Alex

[L-F-J]

Most characters have very broad meanings when used alone. When they are paired with other characters you get more of a meaning. This is a very good website to find compound words by searching for one character and seeing all the pairs it may be found in. http://hmarty.free.fr/hanzi/ Do a search for 反 and you'll find a lot.

[AlexC]

Thank you L-F-J ... that's very helpful.

Alex

[leadinglee]

the single character in chinese often have many meanings.this fact may sometimes found in english too,such as the verb paired with different prep. or conj.it is difficult to explain a single character clearly.i'd like to have a further discuss with u through msn or in other ways if necessary.

[xuechengfeng]

Some good words to know with 反 are:

反对 (fan3 dui4) = oppose

反正 (fan3 zheng4) = anyways, anyhow

反而 (fan3 er2) = on the contrary

It seems many of the words with 反 are something to the opposite.

[oracleonline]

反映=reflect

反胃=nausea

反响=echo, reply

反动=counteraction

etc.