Learn Chinese Characters

Pinyin Syllable

Chinese characters pronounced chuan

Learn common Chinese characters pronounced chuan, including 传 chuán / zhuàn, 船 chuán, 穿 chuān, 川 chuān, 串 chuàn. Compare tones, meanings, traditional forms…

How to Pronounce This Syllable

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

Initial ch

Like zh, but with a clear puff of air.

Final uan

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

Study Tip

Start with the most common characters (传 chuán / zhuàn, 船 chuán, 穿 chuān, 川 chuān, 串 chuàn) and lock in their tones. 6 common characters share the sound chuan, so lean on words to tell the rest apart.

Learn by Tone

chuan 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: 穿, 川 (2 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

2nd tone

Taking the 2nd tone here: 传, 船 (2 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

3rd tone

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

4th tone

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

Common Words With This Sound

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

Characters

6 common characters in this group.