背诵
bèi sòng · HSK 7
to recite
🎤 bèi sòng sounds like bay song — a song you know by heart
背 means back or to memorize — words loaded onto your back. 诵 means to chant or read aloud. Together they mean pulling words from memory and speaking them out.
背 — north 北 (phonetic) + flesh 月/肉
Originally a phono-semantic compound: 月 (a form of 肉, 'flesh/body') gives the meaning 'back of the body,' while 北 supplies the sound. Interestingly, 北 itself depicted two people back-to-back and once meant 'back'; when it was borrowed for 'north,' 背 was created with the flesh radical to keep the original sense.