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:

才

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 2

才 (cái)

ability; talent; just now; only

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (才)

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

3 Active Tones

Tone 2cái

Tone 4zài

Tone 5

Family Characters (7)

Root: 才

才

cái

HSK 2

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

ability; talent; just now; only

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在

zài

HSK 1

土(earth)

at, in, on, to exist, indicating an ongoing action

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存

cún

HSK 3

子(child)

to exist, deposit, store

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材

cái

HSK 3

木(tree)

material

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财

cái

HSK 4

贝(shell)

money, wealth, riches, property

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豺

chái

Expansion

豸(feline beast)

dog-like animal; ravenous beast

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財

Expansion

貝(shell)

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