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:

利

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 2

利 (lì)

sharp, benefit, profit

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (利)

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

2 Active Tones

Tone 2lí

Tone 4lì

Family Characters (9)

Root: 利

利

lì

HSK 2

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

sharp, benefit, profit

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梨

lí

HSK 5

木(tree)

pear

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俐

lì

HSK 6

亻(person)

used in 伶俐[ling2 li4]

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唎

lì

Expansion

口(mouth)

(final particle); sound

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猁

lì

Expansion

犭(dog)

used in 猞猁[she1 li4]

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痢

lì

Expansion

疒(sickness)

dysentery

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脷

lì

Expansion

⺼(meat)

(cattle) tongue (Cantonese)

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莉

lì

Expansion

艹(plants)

used in 茉莉[mo4 li4]; used in the transliteration of female names

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蜊

lí

Expansion

虫(insect)

clam

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