Pinyin Syllable
Chinese characters pronounced shang
Learn common Chinese characters pronounced shang, including 上 shàng, 商 shāng, 伤 shāng, 尚 shàng, 赏 shǎng. Compare tones, meanings, traditional forms, words…
How to Pronounce This Syllable
To say shang, set the tongue tip back for the retroflex sh, then run into ang without a pause — one Mandarin block, with the tone laid over it.
Initial sh
Curl the tongue back for sh. English speakers often make it too flat.
Final ang
Let the sound move toward the back of the mouth.
Study Tip
Start with the most common characters (上 shàng, 商 shāng, 伤 shāng, 尚 shàng, 赏 shǎng) and lock in their tones. 5 common characters share the sound shang, so lean on words to tell the rest apart.
Learn by Tone
shang 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: 商, 伤 (2 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
3rd tone
Taking the 3rd tone here: 赏 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
4th tone
Taking the 4th tone here: 上, 尚 (2 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
Common Words With This Sound
Seeing shang inside whole words makes it clear which character is meant — here are common ones.
Characters
5 common characters in this group.