With a career spanning 30 years, Teng remained widely popular throughout the 1970s and 1980s; she remained popular even up to the first half of the 1990s, up until her death in 1995. Teng was known as a patriotic entertainer whose powerful romantic ballads and performances revolutionized Chinese popular culture during the 1970s and 1980s. She is often credited for bridging the cultural barrier across Chinese-speaking nations, and first artist to connect Japan to much of East and Southeast Asia, by singing Japanese pop songs, many of which were later translated to Mandarin. She was known for her folk songs and ballads, such as "When Will You Return?" "As Sweet as Honey" "Forget Him" and "The Moon Represents My Heart". She recorded more than 1500 songs throughout her career, not only in Mandarin but also in Hokkien, Cantonese, Japanese, Indonesian English and Italian when she was 14 years old. She also spoke French and Thai. To date, her songs have been covered by hundreds of singers all over the world.