King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “honestly”

说真的
shuō zhēn de
Traditional: 說真的
to tell the truth; honestly; in fact

The closest CC-CEDICT match for honestly is 说真的 (shuō zhēn de), defined as: to tell the truth; honestly; in fact.

Before using these characters for a tattoo, check them with a native speaker. Dictionary words often have several meanings, and the right choice depends on context.

Characters and stroke order

说 shuō
to speak, to say; to scold, to upbraid
radical 149 ⾔ · 9 strokes
真 zhēn
real, actual, true, genuine
radical 109 ⽬ · 10 strokes
的 de
aim, goal; of; possessive particle; -self suffix
radical 106 ⽩ · 8 strokes

Traditional forms

Related words

Other words that share a character with 说真的.

WordPinyinMeaning
说明 (說明)shuō míngto explain; to illustrate
小说 (小說)xiǎo shuōnovel; fiction
说话 (說話)shuō huàto speak; to say
听说 (聽說)tīng shuōto hear (sth said); one hears (that)
说法 (說法)shuō fǎto expound Buddhist teachings
真的zhēn dereally; truly; indeed; real; true; genuine
真正zhēn zhènggenuine; real; true; really; indeed
真是zhēn shiindeed; truly; (coll.) (used to express disapproval, annoyance etc)
的话 (的話)de huàif (coming after a conditional clause)

See also: Japanese symbol for “honestly”.

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3); Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License (graphics.txt); LGPL-3.0-or-later (dictionary.txt)); wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0 (data)). Retrieved 2026-10-22.