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:

央

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 5

央 (yāng)

center

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (央)

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

3 Active Tones

Tone 1yāng

Tone 4yìng

Tone 5

Family Characters (11)

Root: 央

央

yāng

HSK 5

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

center

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英

yīng

HSK 2

艹(plants)

English / British / Hero

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映

yìng

HSK 4

日(sun)

to reflect, to shine, to project

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殃

yāng

HSK 7

歹(death)

calamity

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秧

yāng

HSK 7

禾(grain)

sapling; seedling; sprout; rice seedling

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怏

yàng

Expansion

忄(heart)

discontented

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泱

yāng

Expansion

氵(water)

agitated (wind, cloud); boundless

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盎

àng

Expansion

皿(dish)

(literary) ancient earthenware container with a big belly and small mouth; (literary) brimming; abundant

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鞅

yāng

Expansion

革(raw leather)

martingale (part of a horse's harness); used in 鞅鞅[yang1 yang1]

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鴦

Expansion

鳥(bird)

—

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鸯

yāng

Expansion

鸟(bird)

used in 鴛鴦|鸳鸯[yuan1 yang1]

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