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Dzs is the eighth letter, and only trigraph, of the Hungarian alphabet. It is pronounced [dʒeː] as a letter, and represents the voiced postalveolar affricate (IPA: /dʒ/).

In several words, it is pronounced long, e.g.

• menedzser, bridzs, bridzsel, maharadzsa, lodzsa, rádzsa, hodzsa, dodzsem, tádzsik, Tádzsikisztán, Kudzsiri-havasok

in other ones, short, e.g.

• tinédzser, fridzsider, büdzsé, Fudzsi

It is short without exception:

• next to another consonant: lándzsa, findzsa, nindzsa, bendzsó, bandzsa, halandzsa, halandzsázik, mandzsetta, Kilimandzsáró, Azerbajdzsán, Mandzsúria
• and at the beginning of the word: dzsóker, dzsungel, dzsem, dzsip, dzsida, dzsihád, dzsigg, dzsigoló, dzseki, dzsentri, dzsámi, dzsembori, dzsessz, dzsinn, dzsóker, dzsogging, dzsömper, dzsörzé, dzsunka, dzsuva, dzsúsz, dzsumbuj, dzsúdó, dzsúdzsicu (both are short), Dzsenifer, Dzsesszika, Dzsibuti, Dzsószer, Dzsingisz, Dzsungária, Dzsaváharlál, Dzsaipur

It is not usually doubled even when it is pronounced long, except when a word with this sound has an assimilated suffix: bridzs + dzsel: briddzsel (with the bridge game).

Usage of this letter is similar to dž in Slovak or Czech. One has to remember that in Hungarian, even if three characters are put together to make a different sound, they are considered one letter, and even acronyms keep the letter intact. As one can see from the examples above and below, it is almost exclusively used in foreign loanwords, to represent the voiced postalveolar affricate (j/soft g in English).

The following are Hungarian loanwords (mostly taken from English) using the trigraph dzs:

• nindzsa = ninja
• dzsem = jam
• dzsip = jeep
• bendzsó = banjo
• dzsungel = jungle
• dzsessz = jazz