突然 from HSK Level 3 Vocabulary List

The Chinese word 突然 (tūrán) means "suddenly" or "abruptly". It is composed of two characters: 突 (tū), which means "to protrude" or "to break through", and 然 (rán), which means "thus" or "so". The combination of these two characters suggests the idea of something happening unexpectedly or without warning.The character 突 (tū) is composed of two parts: 殳 (shū), which is a pictograph of a weapon, and ⺼ (yǐ), which is a phonetic component. The character 殳 (shū) is used to represent the idea of "to strike" or "to attack", while the character ⺼ (yǐ) is used to represent the sound "tū".The character 然 (rán) is composed of two parts: 日 (rì), which is a pictograph of the sun, and ⺼ (yǐ), which is a phonetic component. The character 日 (rì) is used to represent the idea of "brightness" or "light", while the character ⺼ (yǐ) is used to represent the sound "rán".The combination of the characters 突 (tū) and 然 (rán) creates the word 突然 (tūrán), which means "suddenly" or "abruptly". This word is often used to describe something that happens unexpectedly or without warning. For example, you could say 突然下起了雨 (tūrán xià qǐle yǔ), which means "it suddenly started to rain".