你们

nǐmen · HSK 1

you

👥 你 (you) + 们 (plural suffix) = you-all

们 is the standard plural marker for people: 我们 we, 你们 you-all, 他们 they. So 你们 is literally you + plural, addressing a group rather than one person.

你 — person radical 亻+ 尔 (you)
你 combines the person radical 亻with 尔, an older second-person pronoun. 尔 originally depicted a decorative object and was borrowed phonetically. Adding 亻clarified the human meaning, giving the modern informal 'you' used in Mandarin today.

们 — person radical 亻 + 门 (mén, gate/phonetic)
们 is a semantic-phonetic compound: the person radical 亻 signals it relates to people, while 门 (mén) supplies the sound. It was created in later vernacular Chinese as a plural marker for pronouns and people nouns (我们, 你们, 朋友们), and has no ancient pictographic origin.

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