Pinyin Syllable
Chinese characters pronounced zhou
Learn common Chinese characters pronounced zhou, including 周 zhōu, 洲 zhōu, 州 zhōu, 宙 zhòu, 皱 zhòu. Compare tones, meanings, traditional forms, words…
How to Pronounce This Syllable
To say zhou, set the tongue tip back for the retroflex zh, then run into ou without a pause — one Mandarin block, with the tone laid over it.
Initial zh
Put the tongue slightly curled back. Do not pronounce it like English “j”.
Final ou
Settle the final ou into a steady mouth shape first, then lay the tone on top.
Study Tip
Start with the most common characters (周 zhōu, 洲 zhōu, 州 zhōu, 宙 zhòu, 皱 zhòu) and lock in their tones. 9 common characters share the sound zhou, so lean on words to tell the rest apart.
Learn by Tone
zhou 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: 周, 洲, 州… (4 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
2nd tone
Taking the 2nd tone here: 轴 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
4th tone
Taking the 4th tone here: 宙, 皱, 骤… (4 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.
Common Words With This Sound
Seeing zhou inside whole words makes it clear which character is meant — here are common ones.
Characters
9 common characters in this group.