心愿
xīnyuàn · HSK 6
breathing
💨 心 heart + 愿 wish — the hearts deepest wish: to keep breathing
Your heart (心) has one primal wish (愿): to keep drawing breath. The two characters fuse desire and life force into a single word.
心 — pictograph of a heart with chambers and aorta
心 is a pictograph showing a stylized heart, with strokes representing the organ's chambers and the aorta at the top. Originally meaning the physical heart, it broadened to cover mind, feelings, and intentions, since ancient Chinese thought located thinking and emotion in the heart.
愿 — 原 (source) + 心 (heart)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The heart radical 心 carries the meaning of inner feeling or wish, while 原 (yuán, 'source/plain') supplies the sound. Together they depict a wish welling up from the heart, giving the senses 'to wish, to be willing'.