Chinese character for sun: 日 (rì)
The Chinese character for sun is 日 (rì). It means sun and day, and appears in 日出 (rìchū, sunrise) and 生日 (shēngrì, birthday). In everyday speech, the sun in the sky is usually called 太阳 (tàiyáng).
How 日 is built
日 is a pictograph of the sun. Ancient forms were a circle with a dot in the middle; writing with a brush turned the circle into a rectangle and the dot into a line. As a part of other characters it marks light, time and days, as in 明 (bright: sun and moon), 早 (early) and 星 (star). It is identical in simplified and traditional Chinese.
日 rì · day
- 口kǒu — mouth
- 冂 — frame
- 丨 — vertical stroke
- 一 — horizontal stroke
- 冂 — frame
- 一 — horizontal stroke
Origin hint: The sun (from the Make Me a Hanzi dataset; treat as a memory aid where history is uncertain)
How 日 is used
Other ways to say sun
- 太阳 tàiyáng — the everyday word for the sun
Before you use it as a tattoo or design: 日 alone often reads as 'day' or even as 'Japan' (日本), so 太阳 is clearer for 'sun'.
Questions
What is the Chinese character for sun?
日 (rì) means “sun”.
How do you pronounce 日?
日 is pronounced rì.