自 (zì) means Oneself (certainly - from). Below are 24 of the 244 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
他会维修 自 行车。
Tā huì wéixiū zìxíngchē.
He knows how to repair bicycles.
Dictionary example · HSK 5 · 维修
Reading these is one thing; producing 自 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
说实话，我 自 己也这么想。
shuō shíhuà, wǒ zìjǐ yě zhème xiǎng.
To be honest, I thought the same.
Graded reader · HSK 4 · Keeping Up Running
我以为 自 己可以坚持下去。
wǒ yǐwéi zìjǐ kěyǐ jiānchí xiàqu.
I thought I could keep it up.
Graded reader · HSK 4 · Facing Pressure
我总觉得 自 己在浪费时间。
wǒ zǒng juéde zìjǐ zài làngfèi shíjiān.
I kept feeling I was wasting time.
Graded reader · HSK 4 · Facing Pressure
我站在路边喘气，觉得 自 己特别可笑。
wǒ zhàn zài lùbiān chuǎn qì, juéde zìjǐ tèbié kěxiào.
I stood by the road getting my breath back, feeling faintly ridiculous.
Graded reader · HSK 4 · Keeping Up Running
我用电脑给 自 己打电话，可是没有人接。
wǒ yòng diànnǎo gěi zìjǐ dǎdiànhuà, kěshì méiyǒu rén jiē.
I rang my own number from the computer, but nobody picked up.
Graded reader · HSK 3 · Losing My Phone
后来我发现， 自 己想出来的东西记得最久。
hòulái wǒ fāxiàn, zìjǐ xiǎngchū lái de / dì dōngxī jìde zuì jiǔ.
Later I realised that what you work out yourself is what you remember longest.
Graded reader · HSK 2 · My Chinese Teacher
我八岁那年，爸爸买了一辆小 自 行车给我。
wǒ bā suì nà / nèi nián, bàba mǎile yī liàng xiǎo zìxíngchē gěi wǒ.
The year I was eight, my dad bought me a small bicycle.
Graded reader · HSK 3 · Learning to Ride a Bike
可是我喜欢那个每天都能说到做到的 自 己。
kěshì wǒ xǐhuan nèigè měitiān dōu néng shuōdào zuòdào de / dì zìjǐ.
But I do like the version of me who does what he says he'll do, every day.
Graded reader · HSK 4 · Keeping Up Running
走出大楼的时候，我以为 自 己肯定没有机会了。
zǒu chū dà lóu de / dì shíhou, wǒ yǐwéi zìjǐ kěndìng méiyǒu jīhuì le / liǎo / liào.
Walking out of the building, I was sure I'd blown it.
Graded reader · HSK 3 · The Job Interview
我在同一条街上走了三遍，才发现 自 己一直在转圈。
wǒ zài tóngyī tiáo jiēshàng zǒule sān biàn, cái fāxiàn zìjǐ yìzhí zài zhuǎn / zhuàn juān.
I'd walked down the same street three times before I realised I was going in circles.
Graded reader · HSK 3 · Getting Lost
那一刻我明白了，其实我一直都可以，只是不相信 自 己。
nà / nèi yīkè wǒ míngbaile, qíshí wǒ yìzhí dōu kěyǐ, zhǐshì bù xiāngxìn zìjǐ.
In that moment I understood that I'd always been able to — I just hadn't believed it.
Graded reader · HSK 3 · Learning to Ride a Bike
From the grammar library
请你介绍介绍 自 己。
Qǐng nǐ jièshào jièshào zìjǐ.
Please tell us a bit about yourself.
Grammar library · HSK 3 · Verb reduplication — 看看, 试试
自 appears in 244 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 自
Each of these has sentences of its own, so you can see the character doing a different job in each one.
Questions about 自
How is 自 used in a sentence?
This page shows 244 sentences using 自 (zì, "Oneself (certainly - from)"), 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 自 inside a longer word?
Because that is where a single character usually lives. Seeing 自 inside the words it builds is how the character stops being an isolated symbol and starts being something you can read.
Where can I see the full entry for 自?
The dictionary page for 自 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 自, write a sentence of your own and check it in the Pinyin Annotator, or search the whole sentence bank for another word.
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