舌 (jī) - Meaning, Stroke Order & Audio

舌

jī[ji1]Tone 1

tongue

HSK 6

Multiple Readings (多音字):

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English · tongue

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Topology:Single character

Strokes:6

Writing Balance Rule: The top horizontal and vertical strokes form an overarching protective roof, while the lower strokes taper neatly toward the center.

1. Meaning

tongue

clapper of a bellspeech or language (archaic/literary)used in transcription of Taiwanese Hokkien for 'tongue'

NounNeutral / Specialized#anatomy#body parts#transcription

Sample Usage

舌头
shétou
tongue
喇舌
lǎ jī
to French kiss (Taiwanese loanword usage where 舌 is pronounced jī)

2. Sound

/[t͡ɕi˥]/Tone: 55

舌

jīji1

¯(55)

=jī

Initial Consonant

Type: Unaspirated Alveolo-Palatal

Sounds like: j sound as in 'jeep'

Unaspirated

Airflow Tactile Test: No air puff. Lips spread wide like smiling.

Tongue & Mouth Position: Blade of the tongue presses against the hard palate while the tip rests behind the lower front teeth.

Final Rhyme

Vowel Group: -i vowel group

Sounds like: -ee rhyme as in 'see'

Mouth Shape Guide: Pronounce as standalone vowel 'ee'.

Common Learner Trap: Keep vowel quality steady across all 4 tone contours.

Tone

T1 (55)

5 → 5 (55)

1st Tone (High-Flat)

Tone Pitch & Cadence: Tone 1 is a high, unchanging pitch, exactly like maintaining a flat, even high note when singing in English.

👂

Listening trap: Confusing this rare reading jī with its far more common primary reading shé.

👋

Physical Tone Gesture: A high, flat musical note held steady at the top of your vocal range, like a single note played on a flute.

3. Writing

Topology: Single character · Strokes: 6 strokes

Writing Balance Rule: The top horizontal and vertical strokes form an overarching protective roof, while the lower strokes taper neatly toward the center.

4. Components

Radical 舌 · Tongue Radical (tongue)

Semantic Clue (形旁): 舌 (Represents the physical shape of a protruding tongue sticking out of a mouth.)

The character visually depicts a mouth at the bottom with a tongue sticking out or curling upward at the top.

千 Upper portion resembling the character for thousand (qiān)
口 Lower portion representing the mouth (kǒu)

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

11· Phonetic Root: 舌 (jī)

5. History

Liushu category: Pictogram (象形)

Origin: In Oracle Bone inscriptions, the character clearly depicts a human mouth (口) with an elongated line or shape extending outward, representing a tongue licking or tasting something.

Semantic Evolution: From the literal physical organ of taste and speech, it extended to objects shaped like a tongue (such as the clapper of a bell) and is occasionally borrowed for phonetic transcriptions.

Ancient Chinese thinkers referred to the tongue as the minister of the heart and speech.
In modern times, this specific reading jī is a specialized phonetic borrowing used primarily in Taiwanese slang.

6. Sinosphere

🇻🇳

Sino-Vietnamese

thiệt

The entering tone in Sino-Vietnamese corresponds to short checked syllables, whereas the Mandarin reading jī uses a high level tone.

🇯🇵

Kanji (Japanese)

On: ゼツ (zetsu) / セツ (setsu) / Kun: した (shita)

🇰🇷

Hanja (Korean)

설

Sound Shift Bridge: The historical root connects to ancient r- or l- initial dental/lingual consonants across East Asian language roots.

7. Memory

Vivid Mnemonic Story

Imagine sticking your TONGUE out of your MOUTH (口) to catch a THOUSAND (千) falling snowflakes in the high winter sky (Tone 1). Note that while it is normally read shé, in special slang it takes the reading jī.

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

话

huàspeech, wordsCombines speech radical (讠) with tongue/speech elements.

刮

guāto scrapeUses a knife component instead of a mouth.

Lookalikes & Traps (形近字)

千(qiān)

千 means thousand and lacks the bottom mouth (口) enclosure found in 舌.

8. Mastery

Active Recall Challenge

他们在夜市里吃完小吃后开始开心得[___]舌。

Clue: lǎ jī

Common Learner Pitfall

Assuming 舌 is always pronounced shé; forgetting that in specific loanwords or phonetic transcriptions like 喇舌 it takes the reading jī.

Memory Prompts

Recognition: When you see the character 舌 used in the Taiwanese slang term 喇舌, what is its special pronunciation?

Production: How do you write the character meaning 'tongue' that has 6 strokes and depicts a mouth with a protruding element?

舌jītongue

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