Radical 儿

2 strokes

兒

This character means “boy”, “son” or “child”. It is also used as a suffix, and it is then pronounced as an “r” sound; for example the word 好儿 is pronounced hǎor instead of hǎo’ér (see the notes on combining characters, at the end of this chapter).

Notice the hook on the second stroke, which helps to distinguish this character from the previous one.

/ The boy ’s bicycle wheels were filthy. “How on earth did you get them so dirty?” said the fairy, “I only cleaned them this morning!” (You might think she’s a pretty hopeless fairy if she can’t keep them clean by magic!)