Learn Chinese Characters

Pinyin Syllable

Chinese characters pronounced po

Learn common Chinese characters pronounced po, including 破 pò, 迫 pò, 婆 pó, 坡 pō, 颇 pō. Compare tones, meanings, traditional forms, words…

How to Pronounce This Syllable

To say po, release air on the aspirated p, glide into o, and ride the tone — keep it joined as one sound.

Initial p

Start the syllable on the initial p, then run straight into the final o — keep them joined instead of sounding out separate English letters.

Final o

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

Study Tip

Start with the most common characters (破 pò, 迫 pò, 婆 pó, 坡 pō, 颇 pō) and lock in their tones. 7 common characters share the sound po, so lean on words to tell the rest apart.

Learn by Tone

po 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: 坡, 颇, 泼 (3 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

2nd tone

Taking the 2nd tone here: 婆 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

3rd tone

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

4th tone

Taking the 4th tone here: 破, 迫 (2 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

Common Words With This Sound

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

Characters

7 common characters in this group.