Pinyin Syllable
Chinese characters pronounced kong
Learn common Chinese characters pronounced kong, including 空 kōng, 控 kòng, 恐 kǒng, 孔 kǒng. Compare tones, meanings, traditional forms, words…
How to Pronounce This Syllable
For kong, push a small puff of air on k, join it to ong, and hold the tone over the whole syllable.
Initial k
Start the syllable on the initial k, then run straight into the final ong — keep them joined instead of sounding out separate English letters.
Final ong
ong sounds close to “ung”, not English “ong”.
Study Tip
Start with the most common characters (空 kōng, 控 kòng, 恐 kǒng, 孔 kǒng) and lock in their tones. 4 common characters share the sound kong, so lean on words to tell the rest apart.
Learn by Tone
kong turns up here with 3 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: 空 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
3rd tone
Taking the 3rd tone here: 恐, 孔 (2 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
4th tone
Taking the 4th tone here: 控 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
Common Words With This Sound
Seeing kong inside whole words makes it clear which character is meant — here are common ones.
Characters
4 common characters in this group.