Pinyin Syllable
Chinese characters pronounced zeng
Learn common Chinese characters pronounced zeng, including 增 zēng, 曾 céng / zēng, 赠 zèng. Compare tones, meanings, traditional forms, words…
How to Pronounce This Syllable
To say zeng, use a flat-tongue z, slide into eng, and lay the tone on top — it is one sound, not the letters read separately.
Initial z
Use a flat tongue. It is not English “z”.
Final eng
eng is farther back than en.
Study Tip
Start with the most common characters (增 zēng, 曾 céng / zēng, 赠 zèng) and lock in their tones. 3 common characters share the sound zeng, so lean on words to tell the rest apart.
Learn by Tone
zeng 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: 增 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
2nd tone
Taking the 2nd tone here: 曾 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
4th tone
Taking the 4th tone here: 赠 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
Common Words With This Sound
Seeing zeng inside whole words makes it clear which character is meant — here are common ones.
Characters
3 common characters in this group.