嗯 (ēn): (a groaning sound)

嗯 (ēn) is a Chinese character meaning “(a groaning sound).” Classified as HSK Level 4 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 口 (semantic) and 恩 (phonetic). It ranks #3014 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 嗯 mouth. Its radical form 口 (mouth) appears in many related characters such as 口 (kǒu, mouth), 吃 (chī, to eat), 喝 (hē, to drink).

Spoken pronunciation
HSK 4Radical: 口 mouth13 strokesFrequency #3014口 semantic恩 phonetic

Definitions

  1. (a groaning sound)

Etymology & Origin

嗯

pictophoneticmouth

Decomposition: ⿰口恩 (layout: left-right)

Components:口semantic恩phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13

Practice writing 嗯 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
嗯哼interjectionen hēnguh-huh
1
Total compounds
100
As first character
0
As last character
0
As middle character

嗯 appears in 1 compound words: 100 as the first character, 0 as the last, and 0 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with 嗯 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

哼hēng
0.663100 co-occurrences
嘛ma
0.49544 co-occurrences
哇wā
0.41214 co-occurrences
啊a
0.38512 co-occurrences
答dá
0.35426 co-occurrences
浩hào
0.31214 co-occurrences
我wǒ
0.27593 co-occurrences
说shuō
0.26425 co-occurrences
你nǐ
0.24622 co-occurrences
是shì
0.17883 co-occurrences

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

他嗯干舌燥地讲了两个小时，终于说服了大家。

tā ēn gān shé zào dì jiǎng le liǎng gè xiǎo shí , zhōng yú shuō fú le dà jiā .

He spoke for two hours, his throat parched, and finally managed to convince everyone.

少数派May 2026

嗯，是在闲鱼买的国行，而且还能跟 AC+ 绑定，后续更换就更方便了。

ēn , shì zài xián yú mǎi de guó háng , ér qiě hái néng gēn A C bǎng dìng , hòu xù gēng huàn jiù gēng fāng biàn le .

Yeah, I bought the China mainland version on Xianyu, and it can even be linked to AC+, which makes it easier to replace later on.

Character Family

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 口 (mouth) component

和hé知zhī问wèn呢ne叫jiào吧ba吗ma吃chī号hào哪nǎ

Related Characters

口kǒu吃chī喝hē问wèn叫jiào响xiǎng名míng吐tǔ可kě吗ma

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 嗯 (ēn) mean in Chinese?
嗯 (ēn) primarily means "(a groaning sound)." It is classified as HSK Level 4, making it an upper-intermediate character. It ranks #3014 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 嗯 have?
嗯 is written with 13 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 嗯?
The radical associated with 嗯 is 口 (mouth). This radical appears in many characters related to mouth.
What are the components of 嗯?
嗯 is composed of: 口 (semantic), 恩 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰口恩 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 嗯?
Common words with 嗯 include: 嗯哼 (en hēng, "uh-huh"). There are over 1 compound words containing this character.
Is 嗯 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 嗯 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 嗯 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear spoken pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

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Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.