Pinyin Syllable
Chinese characters pronounced sheng
Learn common Chinese characters pronounced sheng, including 生 shēng, 声 shēng, 省 shěng / xǐng, 胜 shēng / shèng, 升 shēng. Compare tones, meanings…
How to Pronounce This Syllable
For sheng, curl the tongue back on sh and join it smoothly to eng; keep it as a single syllable and hold the tone steady.
Initial sh
Curl the tongue back for sh. English speakers often make it too flat.
Final eng
eng is farther back than en.
Study Tip
Start with the most common characters (生 shēng, 声 shēng, 省 shěng / xǐng, 胜 shēng / shèng, 升 shēng) and lock in their tones. 10 common characters share the sound sheng, so lean on words to tell the rest apart.
Learn by Tone
sheng 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: 生, 声, 胜… (5 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
2nd tone
Taking the 2nd tone here: 绳 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
3rd tone
Taking the 3rd tone here: 省 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
4th tone
Taking the 4th tone here: 圣, 盛, 剩 (3 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
Common Words With This Sound
Seeing sheng inside whole words makes it clear which character is meant — here are common ones.
Characters
10 common characters in this group.