私自

私自 sīzì

Without permission (secretly)

What 私自 means

  1. Without permission (secretly)

These meanings come from the same dictionary that powers the Chinese to Pinyin translator and the Chinese to English translator, so a whole sentence containing 私自 will read it the same way this page does.

Recognise a piece of 私自 but not the character it belongs to? Pick the parts in the component character finder and it will name the character for you — free for every character, with nothing to sign in to.

Character by character

私自 is written with 2 characters. Chinese words are usually easier to remember once you can see what each part contributes.

私
sī
Private (secret - selfish)
自
zì
Oneself (certainly - from)

How to write 私自

Stroke order is not decoration — it is what makes handwriting legible and what dictionary lookup by stroke count depends on.

Practise 私自 on printable 田字格 sheets, trace it in the writing practice tool, or watch any other character in the Stroke Order Animator.

私自 in a sentence

他私自把文件带回了家。
Tā sīzì bǎ wénjiàn dài huí le jiā.
He took the documents home without permission.
不能私自改动数据。
Bù néng sīzì gǎidòng shùjù.
The data may not be altered privately.

Every sentence on this site that uses 私自 is collected on the 私自 sentence page. Want pinyin above a sentence of your own? Paste it into the Pinyin Annotator.

Questions about 私自

What does 私自 mean in English?

私自 is pronounced sīzì and means Without permission (secretly).

How do you pronounce 私自?

私自 is sīzì in pinyin — written sizi without tone marks. Press the audio button on this page to hear it spoken by a native voice.

What are the characters in 私自?

私自 is written with 2 characters: 私 (sī) Private (secret - selfish), 自 (zì) Oneself (certainly - from). Knowing the parts is usually how the whole word becomes memorable.

Is 私自 an HSK word?

Yes — 私自 is on the official HSK 6 vocabulary list. You can study it with the rest of that list on the HSK 6 page.

Studied around the same time

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Translate a whole sentence containing 私自 with the Chinese to Pinyin translator, study it alongside the rest of HSK 6, drill it with HSK flashcards, or save it above and review it on your review deck.

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