Example sentences
fáng房jiān间hěn很gān干jìng净。
The room is clean.
zhè这shì是nǐ你de的fáng房jiān间。
This is your room.
About this word
房 is a house or a chamber, and 间 is the space between things, the 间 of 中间 and 时间. A 房间 is a partitioned space inside a building, which is a room. 间 doubles as the measure word for rooms, so 一间房 and 一个房间 both work, and 房间 usually means a room in a home or a hotel rather than a public hall. Rooms with a specific function get their own word: 教室 (classroom), 厨房 (kitchen), 卧室 (bedroom).
The story behind the character
房
房 is 戶 (a door) plus 方, which gives the sound. Xu Shen defined it as 室在旁也: a room off to the side, a wing. The chamber you reach through its own door, beside the main hall. That side-room sense widened out until 房 could mean any room at all, and then a house, and then a branch of a family.
间
间 is light coming through a crack. The old form 閒 sets 月 (the moon) inside 門 (a double door), and Xu Shen glossed it 隙也: a gap, a chink. Moonlight between two door leaves. From that gap the character stretched to mean the space between anything, and then a room, which is just a space walled off. 时间 is the same idea with no walls at all.