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:

单

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 2

单 (shàn)

surname Shan

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (单)

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

4 Active Tones

Tone 1dān

Tone 2chán

Tone 3chǎn

Tone 4shàn

Family Characters (13)

Root: 单

单

shàn

HSK 2

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

surname Shan

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弹

dàn

HSK 5

弓(bow)

bullet, shell, bomb

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惮

dàn

HSK 6

忄(heart)

dread

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阐

chǎn

HSK 7

门(door)

to express

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啴

chǎn

Expansion

口(mouth)

used in 嘽嘽|啴啴[chan3 chan3] and 嘽緩|啴缓[chan3 huan3]

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婵

chán

Expansion

女(woman)

used in 嬋娟|婵娟[chan2 juan1] and 嬋媛|婵媛[chan2 yuan2]

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掸

dǎn

Expansion

扌(hand)

to brush away; to dust off

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殚

dān

Expansion

歹(death)

entirely; to exhaust

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瘅

dān

Expansion

疒(sickness)

(disease)

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箪

dān

Expansion

⺮(bamboo)

round basket for cooked rice

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蝉

chán

Expansion

虫(insect)

cicada

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觯

zhì

Expansion

角(horn)

goblet

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郸

dān

Expansion

阝(city)

used in place names 邯鄲|邯郸[Han2 dan1] (historically, a county in Hebei, now a city) and 鄲城|郸城[Dan1 cheng2] (a county in Henan)

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