Example sentences
zài再shuō说yī一biàn遍。
Say it again.
xià下cì次zài再lái来。
Come again next time.
The story behind the character
再
再 shows a fish with two horizontal lines, or something bound twice, and nobody has settled which. Xu Shen gave it a clean reading: 再, 一举而二也, one motion that yields two. That is how 再 came to mean again, a second time. Old Chinese kept 二 and 再 apart, since 二 was two things side by side.