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:
了
Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 1
了 (liǎo)
bright, clear-sighted, to understand clearly
3
Family Characters
2
HSK Words
Tone Fan-out (了)
How this root's pronunciation drifts across the Mandarin tone spectrum:
2 Active Tones
Tone 2liáo
Tone 3liǎo
Family Characters (3)
Root: 了了
liǎo
HSK 1Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)
bright, clear-sighted, to understand clearly
辽
liáo
HSK 7short name for Liaoning 遼寧|辽宁[Liao2 ning2] province; Liao or Khitan dynasty (916-1125)