差 chā / chà / chāi in a sentence
Difference; Mistake; Dispatch
差 (chā / chà / chāi) means Difference, Mistake, Dispatch. Below are 13 sentences on this site that use it — with pinyin, an English translation and audio. All of them were written by hand; none is machine generated.
Dictionary examples
From the graded readers
有好几次,我 差 点儿就放弃了。
yǒu hǎojǐ cì, wǒ chā / chà / chāi diǎn ér jiù fàngqìle.
There were several times I nearly gave up.
Graded reader · HSK 4 · Changing Jobs
画笔在盒子里放了 差 不多十年。
huà bǐ zài hézi lǐ fàng le / liǎo / liào chàbuduō shínián.
The brushes sat in a box for nearly ten years.
Graded reader · HSK 4 · A Decision at Thirty
大家一起给我们唱歌,我 差 点儿哭了。
dàjiā yìqǐ gěi wǒmen chànggē, wǒ chā / chà / chāi diǎn ér kū le / liǎo / liào.
Everyone sang to us and I nearly cried.
Graded reader · HSK 2 · An Anniversary Surprise
那天下午,礼堂里坐了 差 不多三百个人。
nà / nèi tiānxià wǔ, lǐtáng lǐ zuò le / liǎo / liào chàbuduō sānbǎi gèrén.
That afternoon there were nearly three hundred people in the hall.
Graded reader · HSK 4 · My First Speech
去年我们 差 点儿因为一件小事不再来往。
qùnián wǒmen chā / chà / chāi diǎn ér yīnwèi yíjiàn xiǎoshì bùzài láiwǎng.
Last year we nearly stopped speaking over something trivial.
Graded reader · HSK 4 · A Misunderstanding
我把这个想法告诉几个朋友的时候,反应 差 不多都一样。
wǒ bǎ zhège xiǎngfǎ gàosu jǐge péngyou de / dì shíhou, fǎnyìng chàbuduō dōu yíyàng.
When I told a few friends the idea, the reaction was much the same from all of them.
Graded reader · HSK 4 · A Decision at Thirty
From the travel phrasebook
尺寸有偏 差 吗?
Chǐcùn yǒu piānchā ma?
Is there any variation in size?
Travel phrasebook · Sourcing online (1688 and Alibaba)
差 评是怎么回事?
Chàpíng shì zěnme huí shì?
What's the story with the bad reviews?
Travel phrasebook · Sourcing online (1688 and Alibaba)
尺寸 差 了两毫米。
Chǐcùn chà le liǎng háomǐ.
The size is two millimetres out.
Travel phrasebook · Quality problems and claims
Words that contain 差
Each of these has sentences of its own, so you can see the character doing a different job in each one.
Questions about 差
How is 差 used in a sentence?
This page shows 13 sentences using 差 (chā / chà / chāi, "Difference, Mistake, Dispatch"), each with pinyin, an English translation and audio. Every one of them was written by hand for this site.
Are these sentences machine generated?
No. They come from the site's own dictionary examples, graded readers, travel phrasebook and grammar library — all written by a person. A word with no sentence gets no page here, rather than a page of invented ones.
Why do some sentences show 差 inside a longer word?
Because that is where a single character usually lives. Seeing 差 inside the words it builds is how the character stops being an isolated symbol and starts being something you can read.
Is 差 an HSK word?
Yes — 差 is on the official HSK 3 vocabulary list, and you can study it with the rest of that list on the HSK 3 page.
Where can I see the full entry for 差?
The dictionary page for 差 has its stroke order, its traditional form, every sense the dictionary lists and a character-by-character breakdown. It is linked at the top of this page.
Keep going
Read the full entry for 差, write a sentence of your own and check it in the Pinyin Annotator, drill it with HSK 3 flashcards, or search the whole sentence bank for another word.
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