Pinyin Syllable
Chinese characters pronounced zhen
Learn common Chinese characters pronounced zhen, including 真 zhēn, 阵 zhèn, 镇 zhèn, 震 zhèn, 针 zhēn. Compare tones, meanings, traditional forms, words…
How to Pronounce This Syllable
For zhen, curl the tongue back on zh and join it smoothly to en; keep it as a single syllable and hold the tone steady.
Initial zh
Put the tongue slightly curled back. Do not pronounce it like English “j”.
Final en
Keep the ending light and nasal.
Study Tip
Start with the most common characters (真 zhēn, 阵 zhèn, 镇 zhèn, 震 zhèn, 针 zhēn) and lock in their tones. 11 common characters share the sound zhen, so lean on words to tell the rest apart.
Learn by Tone
zhen 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: 真, 针, 珍… (5 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
3rd tone
Taking the 3rd tone here: 诊 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
4th tone
Taking the 4th tone here: 阵, 镇, 震… (5 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
Common Words With This Sound
Seeing zhen inside whole words makes it clear which character is meant — here are common ones.
Characters
11 common characters in this group.