Learn Chinese Characters

Pinyin Syllable

Chinese characters pronounced chou

Learn common Chinese characters pronounced chou, including 抽 chōu, 仇 chóu / qiú, 筹 chóu, 丑 chǒu, 酬 chóu. Compare tones, meanings, traditional forms, words…

How to Pronounce This Syllable

For chou, curl the tongue back on ch and join it smoothly to ou; keep it as a single syllable and hold the tone steady.

Initial ch

Like zh, but with a clear puff of air.

Final ou

Settle the final ou into a steady mouth shape first, then lay the tone on top.

Study Tip

Start with the most common characters (抽 chōu, 仇 chóu / qiú, 筹 chóu, 丑 chǒu, 酬 chóu) and lock in their tones. 7 common characters share the sound chou, so lean on words to tell the rest apart.

Learn by Tone

chou turns up here with 4 different tones; a change of tone usually means a different character, so the groups below are split by tone.

1st tone

Taking the 1st tone here: 抽 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

2nd tone

Taking the 2nd tone here: 仇, 筹, 酬… (4 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

3rd tone

Taking the 3rd tone here: 丑 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

4th tone

Taking the 4th tone here: 臭 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

Common Words With This Sound

Seeing chou inside whole words makes it clear which character is meant — here are common ones.

Characters

7 common characters in this group.