You saw this one coming: the kneeling woman 女 and the swaddled child 子, side by side. A mother with her child — that, decided the scribes three thousand years ago, is the very picture of good. No character shows the heart of Chinese writing better: two drawings joining hands to say something neither could say alone.
A piece of culture
Study well, rise every day Every schoolchild in China knows the phrase 好好学习，天天向上 — "study well-well, rise day-day". It doubles the characters you know: 好好 (really well) and 天天 (every single day). Doubling is how Chinese adds warmth and rhythm — parents say 慢慢 ("slowly-slowly") to a rushing child. And now you can read the start of the most famous greeting on earth: 你好, "you good" — hello.
Use it in a real word
你好
nǐhǎo · nei5 hou2
hello — literally "you good", the first word every learner says