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:

折

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 4

折 (zhé)

variant of 折[zhe2]; to fold

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (折)

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

3 Active Tones

Tone 1zhā

Tone 2zhé

Tone 4shì

Family Characters (7)

Root: 折

折

zhé

HSK 4

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

variant of 折[zhe2]; to fold

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哲

zhé

HSK 6

口(mouth)

wise, sage

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逝

shì

HSK 7

辶(walking)

(of flowing water or time) to pass by; to pass away; to die

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哳

zhā

Expansion

口(mouth)

used in 嘲哳[zhao1 zha1] and 啁哳[zhao1 zha1]; Taiwan pr. [zha2]

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浙

zhè

Expansion

氵(water)

abbr. for Zhejiang 浙江 province in east China

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蜇

zhé

Expansion

虫(insect)

jellyfish

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踅

chì

Expansion

足(foot)

walk with one leg

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