Learn Chinese Characters

Pinyin Syllable

Chinese characters pronounced shua

Learn common Chinese characters pronounced shua, including 刷 shuā / shuà, 耍 shuǎ. Compare tones, meanings, traditional forms, words, and example sentences.

How to Pronounce This Syllable

To say shua, set the tongue tip back for the retroflex sh, then run into ua 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 ua

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

Study Tip

Start with the most common characters (刷 shuā / shuà, 耍 shuǎ) and lock in their tones. 2 common characters share the sound shua, so lean on words to tell the rest apart.

Learn by Tone

shua turns up here with 2 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: 刷 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

3rd tone

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

Common Words With This Sound

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

Characters

2 common characters in this group.