Pinyin Syllable

Chinese characters pronounced shai

Learn common Chinese characters pronounced shai, including 色 sè / shǎi. Compare tones, meanings, traditional forms, words, and example sentences.

How to Pronounce This Syllable

To say shai, set the tongue tip back for the retroflex sh, then run into ai without a pause — one Mandarin block, with the tone laid over it.

Curl the tongue back for sh. English speakers often make it too flat.

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

Only one common character is read shai (色 sè / shǎi) — focus on locking in its tone.

shai 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: 色 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

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

1 common character in this group.