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:

代

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 3

代 (dài)

to replace, generation, dynasty

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (代)

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

2 Active Tones

Tone 4dài

Tone 5

Family Characters (7)

Root: 代

代

dài

HSK 3

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

to replace, generation, dynasty

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袋

dài

HSK 4

衣(clothes)

bag, pouch, pocket

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贷

dài

HSK 5

贝(shell)

to lend / to borrow / loan

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岱

dài

Expansion

山(mountain)

Mt Tai in Shandong; same as 泰山

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玳

dài

Expansion

王(jade)

tortoise shell; turtle

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貸

Expansion

貝(shell)

—

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黛

dài

Expansion

黑(black)

umber-black dye for painting the eyebrow

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