Pinyin Syllable

Chinese characters pronounced ri

Learn common Chinese characters pronounced ri, including 日 rì. Compare tones, meanings, traditional forms, words, and example sentences.

How to Pronounce This Syllable

ri is a whole syllable. Mandarin r starts with the tongue curled back, softer than the English r in “run”; the i behind it is a buzz, not “ee”.

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

After zh, ch, sh, r, z, c, s, this i is not the clear “ee” in see.

Only one common character is read ri (日 rì) — focus on locking in its tone.

ri turns up here with 1 different tone; a change of tone usually means a different character, so the groups below are split by tone.

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

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

1 common character in this group.