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:
刂
Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)
刂 (dāo)
Kangxi radical 18 (刀[dao1]) as a vertical side element, referred to as 立刀旁[li4 dao1 pang2] or 側刀旁|侧刀旁[ce4 dao1 pang2]
5
Family Characters
1
HSK Words
Tone Fan-out (刂)
How this root's pronunciation drifts across the Mandarin tone spectrum:
3 Active Tones
Tone 1dāo
Tone 2dá
Tone 4dào
Family Characters (5)
Root: 刂刂
dāo
ExpansionPhonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)
Kangxi radical 18 (刀[dao1]) as a vertical side element, referred to as 立刀旁[li4 dao1 pang2] or 側刀旁|侧刀旁[ce4 dao1 pang2]
氘
dāo
Expansiondeuterium 2H; heavy hydrogen, isotope of hydrogen having 1 neutron in its nucleus, so atomic weight 2