Radical 口

7 strokes

mouth 口 (5) + inside 内 (219) = shout 呐

Recall that we use square brackets [ ] for the meaning of characters which you are only ever likely to see in compounds (see Character 557 for the compound in question, but it’s not an important one).

呐 can also be used as a particle at the end of questions, in the same way as 呢 (see Character 268), and in this guise it is pronounced na with a neutral tone.

The main reason we’ve introduced this character here is to show you what it looks like when “person” is replaced by “enter” (see the comment for Character 219). this only happens for Characters 219 and 220: it does not happen for any of the following characters (221–225).

(A drugs bust) they are standing at the mouth of the cave when, from inside, comes a shout. / “The dwarf has found a stash of narcotics!”