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:

危

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 3

危 (wēi)

danger

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (危)

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

5 Active Tones

Tone 1wēi

Tone 2wéi

Tone 3guǐ

Tone 4guì

Tone 5

Family Characters (5)

Root: 危

危

wēi

HSK 3

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

danger

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跪

guì

HSK 6

足(foot)

to kneel

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桅

wéi

Expansion

木(tree)

mast

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詭

Expansion

言(speech)

—

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诡

guǐ

Expansion

讠(speech)

(bound form) sly; crafty; (literary) weird; bizarre

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