Learn Chinese Characters

Pinyin Syllable

Chinese characters pronounced zhuan

Learn common Chinese characters pronounced zhuan, including 传 chuán / zhuàn, 转 zhuǎn / zhuàn, 专 zhuān, 赚 zhuàn / zuàn, 撰 zhuàn. Compare tones, meanings…

How to Pronounce This Syllable

To say zhuan, set the tongue tip back for the retroflex zh, then run into uan 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 uan

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

Study Tip

Start with the most common characters (传 chuán / zhuàn, 转 zhuǎn / zhuàn, 专 zhuān, 赚 zhuàn / zuàn, 撰 zhuàn) and lock in their tones. 6 common characters share the sound zhuan, so lean on words to tell the rest apart.

Learn by Tone

zhuan 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: 专, 砖 (2 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

2nd tone

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

3rd tone

Taking the 3rd tone here: 转 (1 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

4th tone

Taking the 4th tone here: 赚, 撰 (2 in total). Lock this tone in your ear before the meaning.

Common Words With This Sound

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

Characters

6 common characters in this group.