奠定

• Pinyin: diàn dìng
• Hanzi breakdown: 奠 = 酋 + 大 (to offer, establish solemnly); 定 = 宀 + 正 (to fix, settle, determine)

Meaning

To lay the foundation for; to establish firmly; to put in place the basis upon which something is built.

Used in formal, academic, and historical contexts. 奠定基础 (lay the foundation) is a near-fixed collocation. Applied to scientific discoveries that 奠定 a field, policies that 奠定 national development, and personal achievements that 奠定 a career. Implies that what is established is solid and lasting.

Examples

1. 这项划时代的理论发现为整个现代物理学体系奠定了坚实的基础，影响延续至今。 This groundbreaking theoretical discovery laid a solid foundation for the entire system of modern physics, and its influence continues to this day.
2. 幼年时期良好的阅读习惯为她日后的学术研究生涯奠定了不可或缺的认知基础和人文素养。 Good reading habits formed in childhood laid an essential cognitive foundation and humanistic literacy for her later academic research career.
3. 两国领导人此次会晤签署的合作框架协议，为未来十年的双边关系发展奠定了战略性的政治基础。 The cooperation framework agreement signed at this meeting between the two countries’ leaders laid a strategic political foundation for the next decade of bilateral relations.

Usage Guide

Context: history, science, politics, biography

Tone: serious

Do Say

• 这部发表于二十世纪初的经济学论著，以其严密的理论体系和前瞻性的政策主张，为现代宏观经济学的学科发展奠定了奠基性的理论框架。(This economics treatise published in the early twentieth century, with its rigorous theoretical system and far-sighted policy proposals, laid a foundational theoretical framework for the disciplinary development of modern macroeconomics.)
• 父母为孩子在早期教育阶段创造的良好学习环境，往往在无形之中为其终身学习能力的形成奠定了决定性的基础。(The good learning environment that parents create for their children during the early education stage often imperceptibly lays a decisive foundation for the development of their lifelong learning capabilities.)

Don't Say

• 奠定打基础 — redundant; 奠定基础 and 打基础 both mean to lay a foundation; use one or the other, not both

Origin & History

奠 (to set in place as an offering; to establish firmly) + 定 (to fix, to settle, to determine) — to fix and settle a foundation in place

Cultural Context

Generation: All ages

Social background: Universal