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:

劳

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 5

劳 (láo)

toil, labor, fatigue

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (劳)

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

3 Active Tones

Tone 1lāo

Tone 2láo

Tone 4lào

Family Characters (8)

Root: 劳

劳

láo

HSK 5

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

toil, labor, fatigue

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唠

láo

HSK 7

口(mouth)

used in 嘮叨|唠叨[lao2 dao5]

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捞

lāo

HSK 7

扌(hand)

to fish up, to dredge up

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涝

lào

HSK 7

氵(water)

flooded

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崂

láo

Expansion

山(mountain)

name of a mountain in Shandong

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痨

láo

Expansion

疒(sickness)

tuberculosis

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耢

lào

Expansion

耒(plow)

a kind of farm tool (in the form of a rectangular frame) used to level the ground; to level the ground by dragging this tool

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铹

láo

Expansion

钅(metal)

lawrencium (chemistry)

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