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:

奴

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 7

奴 (nú)

slave

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (奴)

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

4 Active Tones

Tone 2nú

Tone 3nǔ

Tone 4nù

Tone 5

Family Characters (9)

Root: 奴

奴

nú

HSK 7

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

slave

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努

nǔ

HSK 2

力(power)

to exert, to strive

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怒

nù

HSK 6

心(heart)

anger

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呶

náo

Expansion

口(mouth)

clamor; (onom.) "look!"

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孥

nú

Expansion

子(child)

child; offspring

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弩

nǔ

Expansion

弓(bow)

crossbow

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胬

nǔ

Expansion

肉(moon)

used in 胬肉[nu3 rou4]

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駑

Expansion

馬(horse)

—

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驽

nú

Expansion

马(horse)

(literary) inferior horse

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