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:

奄

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

奄 (yǎn)

surname Yan; suddenly

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (奄)

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

4 Active Tones

Tone 1yān

Tone 3yǎn

Tone 4yè

Tone 5

Family Characters (13)

Root: 奄

奄

yǎn

Expansion

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

surname Yan; suddenly

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掩

yǎn

HSK 7

扌(hand)

to cover up; to conceal; to close (a door, book etc)

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淹

yān

HSK 7

氵(water)

to flood

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俺

ǎn

Expansion

亻(person)

I (northern dialects)

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唵

ǎn

Expansion

口(mouth)

(interjection) oh!; (dialect) to stuff sth in one's mouth

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埯

ǎn

Expansion

土(earth)

hole in the ground to plant seeds in; to make a hole for seeds

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崦

yān

Expansion

山(mountain)

name of a mountain in Gansu

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殗

yè

Expansion

歹(death)

sickness; repeated

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罨

yǎn

Expansion

罒(net)

foment; valve

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閹

Expansion

門(door)

—

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阉

yān

Expansion

门(door)

to castrate; a castrate

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鵪

Expansion

鳥(bird)

—

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鹌

ān

Expansion

鸟(bird)

used in 鵪鶉|鹌鹑[an1 chun2]

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