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:

意

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 2

意 (yì)

meaning, idea, thought, intention

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (意)

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

3 Active Tones

Tone 1yī

Tone 4yì

Tone 5

Family Characters (7)

Root: 意

意

yì

HSK 2

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

meaning, idea, thought, intention

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億

Expansion

亻(person)

—

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噫

yī

Expansion

口(mouth)

yeah (interjection of approval); to belch

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憶

Expansion

忄(heart)

—

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癔

yì

Expansion

疒(sickness)

used in 癔病[yi4 bing4] and 癔症[yi4 zheng4]

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薏

yì

Expansion

艹(plants)

see 薏苡[yi4 yi3]

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镱

yì

Expansion

钅(metal)

ytterbium (chemistry)

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