Pinyin Syllable

Chinese characters pronounced zei

Learn common Chinese characters pronounced zei, including 贼 zéi. Compare tones, meanings, traditional forms, words, and example sentences.

How to Pronounce This Syllable

To say zei, use a flat-tongue z, slide into ei, and lay the tone on top — it is one sound, not the letters read separately.

Use a flat tongue. It is not English “z”.

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

Only one common character is read zei (贼 zéi) — focus on locking in its tone.

zei 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 2nd tone here: 贼 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

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

1 common character in this group.