Bopomofo Letter D

It marks the start of a Mandarin syllable. Bopomofo d pronunciation is a sound cue, not an English letter or a standalone Chinese word. Zhuyin pairs ㄉ with a final and, when needed, a tone mark to spell the pronunciation of a Chinese character.

Zhuyin was developed as a government pronunciation system to help teach speech and characters. Its first version was created in 1913 and released in 1918.

After 1949, mainland China shifted much of Zhuyin's teaching and input role to Hanyu Pinyin. As of 2026, Taiwan uses Zhuyin in school materials, dictionaries, pronunciation notes, and computer input.

How do you type ㄉ?

Press 2 on the standard Zhuyin keyboard. That enters only the initial. Complete the syllable with its final and tone, then choose a Chinese-character candidate in the input method. A bare ㄉ does not select a finished character.

Other layouts, including Hanyu Pinyin, Eten, Taiwan Pinyin, and custom layouts, can assign keys differently. Check which layout is active.

Why does ㄉ look like a Chinese character?

Its source is Chinese, but its job is phonetic. The glyph comes from 𠚣, an archaic form of 刀; 刀 supplies the sound link. ㄉ marks a sound rather than meaning “knife.”

In annotated text, Zhuyin sits above Han characters in horizontal writing and to their right in vertical writing. Read ㄉ together with the neighboring final and tone mark.