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:

乃

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 7

乃 (nǎi)

to be, thus, therefore

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (乃)

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

3 Active Tones

Tone 1rēng

Tone 3nǎi

Tone 4nài

Family Characters (7)

Root: 乃

乃

nǎi

HSK 7

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

to be, thus, therefore

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奶

nǎi

HSK 1

女(woman)

milk

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扔

rēng

HSK 5

扌(hand)

to throw

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尕

gǎ

Expansion

小(small)

little (dialect)

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氖

nǎi

Expansion

气(air)

neon (chemistry)

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艿

nǎi

Expansion

艹(plants)

see 芋艿[yu4 nai3]

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鼐

nài

Expansion

鼎(tripod bronze cauldron)

incense tripod

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