About

The Chinese word "相当" is formed through the compounding of two independent characters, each carrying its own semantic value: "相", which conveys notions of mutuality or reciprocity, and "当", which conveys ideas of appropriateness, matching, or being equal. Historically rooted in classical Chinese, their combination created a conceptual blend meaning "to correspond mutually" or "to be well-matched", reflecting a state of balance or equivalence. Over time, this fused meaning expanded abstractly, giving rise to its modern adjectival and adverbial senses, such as "considerable" or "quite", but at its core, the word's formation is a semantic synthesis where both components contribute to the idea of proportionate alignment.

Example Sentences Hide

他的成绩相当好。

Tā de chéngjī xiāngdāng hǎo.

His grades are quite good.

今天的天气相当不错。

Jīntiān de tiānqì xiāngdāng bùcuò.

Today's weather is quite nice.

她看起来相当高兴。

Tā kàn qǐlái xiāngdāng gāoxìng.

She looks quite happy.

这个项目的难度相当大,需要更多时间。

Zhège xiàngmù de nándù xiāngdāng dà, xūyào gèng duō shíjiān.

The difficulty of this project is quite high, requiring more time.

尽管经验不足,但他的表现相当出色,赢得了大家的赞赏。

Jǐnguǎn jīngyàn bùzú, dàn tā de biǎoxiàn xiāngdāng chūsè, yíngdéle dàjiā de zànshǎng.

Although lacking experience, his performance was quite outstanding, winning everyone's admiration.

Word Definition - 相当

xiāng dāng equivalent to; appropriate; considerably; to a certain extent; fairly; quite