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:
建
8
Family Characters
2
HSK Words
Tone Fan-out (建)
How this root's pronunciation drifts across the Mandarin tone spectrum:
3 Active Tones
Tone 1jiān
Tone 4jiàn
Tone 5
Family Characters (8)
Root: 建建
jiàn
HSK 3Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)
to build / to establish
楗
jiàn
Expansionmaterial (such as rocks, earth, bamboo etc) used to hastily repair a dike; (literary) door bar (vertical bar used to prevent the horizontal movement of a door bolt)