Phonetic Families & Components

Sound Roots & Semantic Radicals Explorer

Decode Chinese characters by their shared sound roots and see how semantic radicals split their meanings across tones.

Popular Roots:

东

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 1

东 (dōng)

east

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (东)

How this root's pronunciation drifts across the Mandarin tone spectrum:

2 Active Tones

Tone 1dōng

Tone 4dòng

Family Characters (6)

Root: 东

东

dōng

HSK 1

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

east

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冻

dòng

HSK 5

冫(ice)

to freeze

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栋

dòng

HSK 7

木(tree)

classifier for houses or buildings, ridgepole

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岽

dōng

Expansion

山(mountain)

place name in Guangxi province

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胨

dòng

Expansion

⺼(meat)

see 蛋白腖|蛋白胨[dan4 bai2 dong4]

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鸫

dōng

Expansion

鸟(bird)

thrush (bird of genus Turdus)

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