Learn Chinese Characters

Pinyin Syllable

Chinese characters pronounced tong

Learn common Chinese characters pronounced tong, including 同 tóng, 通 tōng, 统 tǒng, 痛 tòng, 童 tóng. Compare tones, meanings, traditional forms, words…

How to Pronounce This Syllable

For tong, push a small puff of air on t, join it to ong, and hold the tone over the whole syllable.

Initial t

Start the syllable on the initial t, then run straight into the final ong — keep them joined instead of sounding out separate English letters.

Final ong

ong sounds close to “ung”, not English “ong”.

Study Tip

Start with the most common characters (同 tóng, 通 tōng, 统 tǒng, 痛 tòng, 童 tóng) and lock in their tones. 8 common characters share the sound tong, so lean on words to tell the rest apart.

Learn by Tone

tong 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: 通 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

2nd tone

Taking the 2nd tone here: 同, 童, 铜 (3 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

3rd tone

Taking the 3rd tone here: 统, 筒, 桶 (3 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

4th tone

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

Common Words With This Sound

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

Characters

8 common characters in this group.