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:

只

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 2

只 (zhǐ)

variant of 只[zhi3]

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (只)

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

4 Active Tones

Tone 1jī

Tone 2shí

Tone 3zhǐ

Tone 4zhì

Family Characters (10)

Root: 只

只

zhǐ

HSK 2

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

variant of 只[zhi3]

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识

shí

HSK 1

讠(speech)

to know, knowledge

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积

jī

HSK 3

禾(grain)

to accumulate

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职

zhí

HSK 3

耳(ear)

office

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织

zhī

HSK 5

纟(silk)

to weave

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帜

zhì

HSK 7

巾(cloth)

flag

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咫

zhǐ

Expansion

尺(ruler)

8 in. length unit of Zhou dynasty

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枳

zhǐ

Expansion

木(tree)

(orange); hedge thorn

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炽

chì

Expansion

火(fire)

to burn; to blaze

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轵

zhǐ

Expansion

车(car)

end of axle outside of hub

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