能

can, be able to; energy

No. 29 most used · 0.47% of everyday spoken Chinese: about 1 character in every 212.

How it's built

• 厶private
• 月moon, meat
• 匕spoon

A way to remember it

It began as a drawing of a bear: strong, so able to.

Words

• 不能

  bù néng

  cannot; must not; should not
• 可能

  kě néng

  might (happen); possible; probable
• 才能

  cái néng

  talent; ability; capacity
• 只能

  zhǐ néng

  can only; obliged to do sth; to have no other choice
• 能够

  néng gòu

  to be capable of; to be able to; can
• 能力

  néng lì

  capability; ability; CL:个

Sentences

• 他可能很快就到了。

  tā kě néng hěn kuài jiù dào le

  He is likely to arrive soon.
• 做那个可能不安全。

  zuò nà ge kě néng bù ān quán

  It probably won't be safe to do that.
• 她可能出什么事了。

  tā kě néng chū shén me shì le

  Something might have happened to her.
• 我不能让那事发生。

  wǒ bù néng ràng nà shì fā shēng

  I can make that happen.

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How often characters are written: wordfreq by Robyn Speer, CC BY-SA 4.0, with data from Google Books Ngrams and SUBTLEX by Marc Brysbaert and others. Meanings: CC-CEDICT, CC BY-SA 4.0. Sentences: Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR. How often they're said: FrequencyWords and OPUS, from OpenSubtitles.