Read Edit View history Discussion 怎 zěn HSK1 what? why? how? Origin Definitions Defs Strokes Stroke Words Sentences Sents Phonosemantic compound. 心 represents the meaning and 乍 represents the sound. Components 心 心 Meaning component xīn, xin heart 乍 乍 Sound component zhà, zuò suddenly Change in sound 怎 and 乍 don't sound similar in modern Mandarin due to historical phonetic changes. They were more similar in older Chinese. Sources Character origin 漢語多功能字庫Readings & variants Unicode