半 (bàn) means Half (semi-). Below are 24 of the 48 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
儿童票只要 半 价。
Értóng piào zhǐ yào bànjià.
A child's ticket is only half price.
Dictionary example · HSK 4 · 儿童
他家在 半 山坡上。
Tā jiā zài bàn shān pō shang.
His home is halfway up the slope.
Dictionary example · HSK 6 · 坡
朝霞映红了 半 边天。
Zhāoxiá yìng hóng le bàn biān tiān.
The morning glow reddened half the sky.
Dictionary example · HSK 6 · 霞
我每天阅读 半 个小时。
Wǒ měi tiān yuèdú bàn ge xiǎoshí.
I read for half an hour every day.
Dictionary example · HSK 4 · 阅读
会议时间缩短了一 半 。
Huìyì shíjiān suōduǎn le yíbàn.
The meeting time was cut in half.
Dictionary example · HSK 5 · 缩短
他中午歇了 半 个小时。
Tā zhōngwǔ xiē le bàn ge xiǎoshí.
He took a half-hour break at midday.
Dictionary example · HSK 5 · 歇
他们上 半 场领先两分。
Tāmen shàng bànchǎng lǐngxiān liǎng fēn.
They led by two points in the first half.
Dictionary example · HSK 6 · 领先
等了 半 天，他终于来了。
Děng le bàntiān, tā zhōngyú lái le.
After a long wait, he finally turned up.
Dictionary example · HSK 3 · 终于
大家劝了 半 天他才同意。
Dàjiā quàn le bàntiān tā cái tóngyì.
It took a lot of persuading before he agreed.
Dictionary example · HSK 5 · 劝
会议时间延长了 半 小时。
Huìyì shíjiān yáncháng le bàn xiǎoshí.
The meeting was extended by half an hour.
Dictionary example · HSK 5 · 延长
汽车每 半 年要保养一次。
Qìchē měi bàn nián yào bǎoyǎng yí cì.
A car should be serviced once every six months.
Dictionary example · HSK 6 · 保养
两家公司各占一 半 股份。
Liǎng jiā gōngsī gè zhàn yíbàn gǔfèn.
The two companies each hold half the shares.
Dictionary example · HSK 6 · 股份
球队下 半 场加强了进攻。
Qiúduì xià bànchǎng jiāqiáng le jìngōng.
The team stepped up its attack in the second half.
Dictionary example · HSK 6 · 进攻
Reading these is one thing; producing 半 yourself is another. Cloze in Context takes a sentence from this same bank, removes one word and asks you to put it back — beginner, intermediate and advanced.
From the graded readers
八点 半 我必须到公司。
bā diǎn bàn wǒ bìxū dào gōngsī.
I have to be at the office by half past eight.
Graded reader · HSK 2 · Late for Work
新工作的收入只有原来的一 半 。
xīn gōngzuò de / dì shōurù zhǐyǒu yuánlái de / dì yībàn.
The new job paid half what the old one had.
Graded reader · HSK 4 · Changing Jobs
去年下 半 年，我的压力特别大。
qùnián xià bàn nián, wǒ de(possessive) yālì tèbié dà.
In the second half of last year I was under enormous pressure.
Graded reader · HSK 4 · Facing Pressure
我七点就起床了，跑了 半 个小时步。
wǒ qī diǎn jiù qǐchuáng le / liǎo / liào, pǎo le / liǎo / liào bànge xiǎoshí bù.
I got up at seven and ran for half an hour.
Graded reader · HSK 2 · My Weekend
车站里人非常多，我等了 半 个小时才买到票。
chēzhàn lǐ rén fēicháng duō, wǒ děng le / liǎo / liào bànge xiǎoshí cái mǎi dào piào.
The station was packed; I queued half an hour before I got a ticket.
Graded reader · HSK 2 · The Train to Shanghai
那 半 年，我几乎每天都加班到晚上十点以后。
nà / nèi bàn nián, wǒ jīhū měitiān dōu jiābān dào wǎnshang shí diǎn yǐhòu.
For those six months I worked past ten almost every night.
Graded reader · HSK 4 · Facing Pressure
From the grammar library
现在两点 半 。
Xiànzài liǎng diǎn bàn.
It's half past two.
Grammar library · HSK 1 · 二 vs 两 — two ways to say two
半 appears in 48 sentences on this site; the 24 shortest and most direct are shown. The rest are on the pages they were written for — the graded readers, the phrasebook and the grammar library.
Words that contain 半
Each of these has sentences of its own, so you can see the character doing a different job in each one.
Questions about 半
How is 半 used in a sentence?
This page shows 48 sentences using 半 (bàn, "Half (semi-)"), 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 半 inside a longer word?
Because that is where a single character usually lives. Seeing 半 inside the words it builds is how the character stops being an isolated symbol and starts being something you can read.
Is 半 an HSK word?
Yes — 半 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 半?
The dictionary page for 半 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 半, 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.
Another word
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