차

cha · TOPIK 1

car

🚗 차 = hanja 車 (cart, vehicle); same root as Chinese chē and Japanese sha

차 is the Sino-Korean reading of 車, the character for a wheeled vehicle. It shows up in 기차 (train), 자동차 (automobile) and 주차 (parking). Note that 차 also means tea, from a different hanja (茶), so context decides.

More Korean words · How Korean works