好在
hǎo zài · HSK 7
luckily
🍀 好在 = 好 (good) + 在 (be at); the good thing is it's here = luckily
好 hǎo means good and 在 zài means to be present or exist. Together: the good point in the situation, what saves the day, hence luckily or fortunately. Often starts a clause: 好在 we still had time.
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.'
在 — earth 土 + phonetic 才
Originally a phono-semantic compound: 土 (earth) gives the meaning of a place or location, while 才 supplies the sound. It came to mean 'to be present/located at,' and now also serves as a grammatical marker for ongoing actions, like 'in the middle of doing.'