噪声

• Pinyin: zào shēng
• Hanzi breakdown: 噪 = 口 + 喿 (clamour/noisy birds); 声 = 殸 simplified (sound/voice)

Meaning

Noise; unwanted sound; acoustic interference. Refers to disruptive, irregular, or harmful sound, especially in technical, scientific, and environmental contexts.

Preferred in technical, scientific, and regulatory contexts over the more colloquial 噪音. 噪声污染 (noise pollution), 噪声控制 (noise control), 噪声标准 (noise standards), 背景噪声 (background noise). In engineering and physics, 噪声 can also refer to signal interference (电磁噪声, 白噪声). Widely used in environmental law, acoustics, and urban planning.

Examples

1. 国家环保局发布了最新的城市噪声标准，明确规定住宅区夜间噪声不得超过四十五分贝。 The national environmental agency released updated urban noise standards, clearly stating that nighttime noise in residential areas must not exceed 45 decibels.
2. 工厂周边居民长期遭受机械噪声的困扰，集体向环保部门提交了投诉申请，要求整改。 Residents living near the factory have long suffered from machinery noise and collectively filed a complaint with environmental authorities, demanding corrective action.
3. 研究人员通过在音频信号中加入白噪声，模拟真实通信环境以测试新型降噪算法的效能。 Researchers added white noise to an audio signal to simulate real communication conditions and test the performance of a new noise-reduction algorithm.

Usage Guide

Context: environmental protection, engineering, acoustics, urban planning, law

Tone: technical/neutral

Do Say

• 该建筑工地因未能有效控制施工噪声而被主管部门责令停工整改，直至达到规定标准为止。(The construction site was ordered by the competent authority to halt operations and rectify its noise control failures until it meets the required standards.)
• 新型隔音材料的应用，有效将车间内的机械噪声降低了约十五分贝，显著改善了工人的作业环境。(The application of the new soundproofing material effectively reduced mechanical noise in the workshop by approximately fifteen decibels, significantly improving the working environment for staff.)

Don't Say

• 噪声太多让我睡不着 — in everyday spoken Chinese, 噪音 is the natural choice; 噪声 sounds excessively technical outside professional or official contexts

Origin & History

噪 (clamour/noise) + 声 (sound)

Cultural Context

Generation: All ages

Social background: Universal