心

It represents the concept of the heart or the mind as the center of emotions and thoughts.

It is a pictogram (ideogram) originally modeled after the shape of a human heart. The character evolved over time into its modern form.

Because it represents “heart” or “mind,” it frequently appears as a radical in characters related to emotions or feelings. Examples include:

愛 (love)

惡 (evil)

怒 (anger)

恐 (fear)

怨 (resentment)

恨 (regret)

恥 (shame)

感 (feel)

慌 (panic)

憘 (joy)

忍 (endure)

戀 (long for)

Almost all emotion-related characters contain the heart radical (忄).

If you combine two 心 characters, you get 㤈 (meaning “heartache”), and three 心 characters combine to form 惢 (meaning “flower stamens”).

Although it is a simple character, it can actually be tricky to write beautifully by hand.

To write a nice 心 character, it’s recommended to shape the central "indentation" stroke like a reversed check mark tilted sideways, with the longer stroke curved inward toward the lower left. The three dots should be placed evenly along an imaginary horizontal line that crosses the middle of the indentation. One dot is placed to the left of the indentation, one inside the concave space, and the last to the right. Avoid placing the middle dot too high, as it distorts the shape.

When writing, start with the left dot. After some practice, writing it well becomes easier.

The character 必 (meaning “certainly”) contains the 心 radical’s part 乚 intersected by another stroke, which sometimes leads beginners to mistakenly think it means “heart broken.” However, 必 has nothing to do with the heart and its origin is unclear.