少女 shàonǚ girl
girl; young lady
How to remember 少女: 少 few + 女 woman = girl.
Characters
How it is used
- A young girl / teenage girl - roughly adolescent to early twenties: 一个天真的少女 (yī gè tiānzhēn de shàonǚ) an innocent young girl.
- Note the reading is shàonǚ (少 = young), not shǎo; parallel to 少年 (shàonián, youth/boy).
- More literary/tender than 女孩 (nǚhái); often carries a poetic, wistful nuance.
Example sentences
- 该名青年将少女从流氓团伙中救了出来。 Gāimíng qīngnián jiāng shàonǚ cóng liúmángtuánhuǒ zhōngjiù le chūlái.The young man saved the girl from a bunch of hoodlums.