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:

南

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 1

南 (nán)

south

View Root Character Page

Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (南)

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

3 Active Tones

Tone 2nán

Tone 3lǎn

Tone 4xiàn

Family Characters (7)

Root: 南

南

nán

HSK 1

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

south

Open Deep Dive

献

xiàn

HSK 5

犬(dog)

to offer / to present / to dedicate

Open Deep Dive

喃

nán

Expansion

口(mouth)

mumble in repetition

Open Deep Dive

楠

nán

Expansion

木(tree)

variant of 楠[nan2]

Open Deep Dive

罱

lǎn

Expansion

罒(net)

a kind of tool used to dredge up fish, water plants or river mud, consisting of a net attached to a pair of bamboo poles, which are used to open and close the net; to dredge with such a tool

Open Deep Dive

腩

nǎn

Expansion

⺼(meat)

brisket; belly beef

Open Deep Dive

蝻

nǎn

Expansion

虫(insect)

locust nymph

Open Deep Dive