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:
商
Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 1
商 (shāng)
commerce, merchant, consult, Shang Dynasty
3
Family Characters
1
HSK Words
Tone Fan-out (商)
How this root's pronunciation drifts across the Mandarin tone spectrum:
1 Active Tones
Tone 1shāng
Family Characters (3)
Root: 商商
shāng
HSK 1Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)
commerce, merchant, consult, Shang Dynasty