Radical 女

8 strokes

woman 女 (15) + not yet 未 (64a) = younger sister 妹

There is no character in Chinese for “sister”; instead we have this character for “younger sister” and another one (Character 444) for “older sister”. The same thing happens for brothers.

妹妹 mèimei younger sister

(Two lads in the pub) “What about that woman over there — she’s not yet married,” says one. “You can’t fancy her, she’s my younger sister!” his mate replies. / “Anyway the dwarf has his eye on her, and he’s a Major.”

Yet again, as in 夫 (49) and 土 (54a), the second stroke of this character is longer than the first. This is another occasion where it does matter, because we shall be meeting the character 末 (793a) later.

It is unfortunately true that some small details like this do matter, whereas other small differences don’t — as mentioned at the start of this chapter. We will do our best to draw attention to the differences that matter and you will soon get used to these; you will also soon be routinely recognizing minor variants of the same character.