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:

则

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 4

则 (zé)

standard, rule, then, but

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (则)

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

2 Active Tones

Tone 2zé

Tone 4cè

Family Characters (6)

Root: 则

则

zé

HSK 4

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

standard, rule, then, but

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测

cè

HSK 4

氵(water)

to measure, to survey, to conjecture

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侧

cè

HSK 6

亻(person)

the side, to incline towards, lateral

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厕

cè

HSK 6

厂(cliff)

variant of 廁|厕[ce4]

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恻

cè

Expansion

忄(heart)

sorrowful

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鲗

zéi

Expansion

鱼(fish)

cuttlefish

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