The Chinese symbol for truth — 真 (zhēn)

Where the character comes from

The origin is genuinely disputed. The seal form appears to show 匕 above 鼎, a ladle over a cauldron, and one long-standing reading connects it to the Daoist 真人, the 'realised person' who has been transformed. Nobody should tell you this one with confidence.

How it is actually used

真的 is 'really', 认真 is conscientious or serious about something, 天真 is naive, 真相 is the truth of a matter, and 真理 is truth as principle. In speech 真 is overwhelmingly an intensifier: 真好 means 'that's really good'.

Both glyphs above are set in whatever Chinese font your device uses, which is a 楷书-derived regular script — the same shape a printer or a tattoo studio's "Chinese font" will produce. Brush styles (行书 running, 草书 cursive, 篆书 seal) look substantially different and are worth commissioning from a calligrapher rather than approximating from a font. You can watch this character written stroke by stroke in the Stroke Order Animator or practise it on printable 田字格 sheets.

This is the part a symbol list leaves out, and it is the fastest way to feel what a character actually carries. Readings and meanings come from the same dictionary that powers the translator; tap any word for its full dictionary entry.

真 is one answer, not the answer. Which of these is right depends on what you mean by "truth" — and that is usually the question worth settling before anything is written down permanently.

What is the Chinese symbol for truth?

真 (zhēn) means real and genuine — not fake, not counterfeit. Truth as an abstract noun is 真理 (zhēnlǐ), and the truth about something that happened is 真相 (zhēnxiàng). It is written 真 and pronounced zhēn.

What does 真 not mean?

It does not mean truth as a philosophical absolute on its own, and it does not mean honesty — 诚实 is honest, 真 is genuine. The distinction is between a thing being real and a person being straight with you.

Is 真 commonly mistranslated?

Yes. The claim you will meet most often is: "真 means truth." It is an adjective and an adverb. Standing alone it reads closer to 'really' or 'genuine' than to the noun truth, in the way 'true' and 'truth' are not interchangeable in English either. This page lists 2 such claims about 真 with what is true instead.

Is 真 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?

真 is written the same way in simplified and traditional Chinese, ten strokes, though older printing and Japanese use a variant 眞 with a slightly different top. Its stack of horizontal strokes makes it a hard character to render small without the middle filling in.

What else can I use for truth in Chinese?

Depending on what you mean: 真理, 实, 诚. This page explains when each one is the right choice, and 真 itself lives in words such as 真的, 真理, 认真.