Pinyin Syllable

Chinese characters pronounced ran

Learn common Chinese characters pronounced ran, including 然 rán, 染 rǎn, 燃 rán. Compare tones, meanings, traditional forms, words, and example sentences.

How to Pronounce This Syllable

ran begins with the tongue curled up and back for r; let it slide straight into an and carry the tone across the whole sound, rather than spelling out English letters.

Initial r

Mandarin r is softer than English r and starts with a curled tongue.

Final an

Keep an short and open; do not turn it into ang.

Study Tip

Start with the most common characters (然 rán, 染 rǎn, 燃 rán) and lock in their tones. 3 common characters share the sound ran, so lean on words to tell the rest apart.

Learn by Tone

ran turns up here with 2 different tones; a change of tone usually means a different character, so the groups below are split by tone.

2nd tone

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

然ráncorrect; right; so; thus; like this; -ly 燃ránburn; combustion

3rd tone

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

染rǎnto catch (a disease); dye

Common Words With This Sound

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

然后rán hòuthen; after that; afterwards 虽然suī ránalthough; even though 忽然hū ránsuddenly; all of a sudden 污染wū rǎn(lit. and fig.) to pollute; to contaminate 传染chuán rǎnto infect; contagious 感染gǎn rǎnto infect; infection; (fig.) to influence 燃烧rán shāoto ignite; to combust; to burn; combustion 燃料rán liàofuel 点燃diǎn ránto ignite; to set on fire; aflame

Characters

3 common characters in this group.

Character#1 然 ráncorrect; right; so; thus; like this; -lyTraditional: 然 Character#2 染 rǎnto catch (a disease); dyeTraditional: 染 Character#3 燃 ránburn; combustionTraditional: 燃