Example sentences
wǒ我shì是xué学shēng生。
I'm a student.
xué学shēng生hěn很duō多。
There are many students.
The story behind the character
学
The traditional 學 is a whole scene: 爻 (counting rods for divination) on top, two hands fiddling with them, and 子 (a child) below. A kid working the rods with his hands. That's the oldest picture of learning. Xu Shen wrote 学, 觉悟也: "to awaken."
生
A sprout poking out of the ground: the bottom line is the soil, the rest is the shoot coming up. Xu Shen wrote 生, 进也, 象草木生出土上: "to grow, like a plant breaking the surface." So the 生 in 学生 and 先生 started as a blade of grass sprouting.