好学
hào xué · HSK 6
eager to study
📚🤓 hao = love + xue = study: someone who loves to study
好 here uses its reading hào meaning 'to love/be fond of,' paired with 学 'study.' A hào xué person is literally a study-lover — someone who can't get enough of learning.
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.'
学 — hands 𦥑 + roof 冖 + child 子
Originally 學, depicting two hands manipulating something (often interpreted as counting rods or the 爻 trigram symbols) under a roof, with a child 子 below — a child learning under instruction. The simplified form 学 replaces the top with a stylized 龸. Core meaning has always been 'to study, learn'.