进口
jìnkǒu · HSK 4
import
📦 进 = enter + 口 = mouth/opening; goods entering the country's mouth
进 means to enter or advance; 口 means mouth or opening (also used for ports of entry). Together 进口 literally reads as enter-mouth, the point where foreign goods come in — hence import.
进 — walk radical 辶 + well 井
Originally a semantic-phonetic compound: the walking radical 辶 gives the meaning of movement, while 井 (jǐng, 'well') supplied the sound. The traditional form 進 used 隹 (short-tailed bird) suggesting forward flight; the simplified 进 swapped 隹 for the simpler phonetic 井. The core meaning 'to advance, enter' has stayed stable.
口 — pictograph of an open mouth
口 is one of the oldest pictographs in Chinese, originally drawn as a simple outline of an open mouth. Its core meaning 'mouth' extended naturally to 'opening' or 'entrance', as in 入口 (entrance). It also serves as a common radical in characters related to speech, eating, or apertures.