好听
hǎotīng · HSK 1
pleasant to hear
🎵👂 好 (good) + 听 (listen) = good to listen to = pleasant-sounding
Compound of 好 hǎo 'good' and 听 tīng 'to listen'. The pattern 好 + verb means 'good to [verb]', so 好听 literally reads as 'good-to-listen', i.e. pleasant to the ear. Compare 好看 hǎokàn 'good-looking' and 好吃 hǎochī 'tasty'.
好 — woman 女 + child 子
好 is an associative compound showing a woman 女 beside a child 子, depicting a mother with her baby. From this image of maternal affection it came to mean 'good, fine, pleasing.' The reading hǎo means 'good'; read hào it means 'to like.'
听 — mouth 口 + axe 斤 (simplified from 聽)
The traditional form 聽 combined 耳 (ear) with 王, 十, 目, and 心, depicting attentive listening with ear, eyes, and heart. The modern simplified 听 uses 口 (mouth) plus the phonetic 斤 (jīn), a much later shorthand. Despite the 'mouth' component, the meaning 'to listen, hear' was inherited from 聽.