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:

文

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 1

文 (wén)

culture, writing, language

View Root Character Page Kangxi #67 (文) · View Radical

Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (文)

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

4 Active Tones

Tone 2wén

Tone 3wěn

Tone 4wèn

Tone 5

Family Characters (13)

Root: 文

文

wén

HSK 1

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

culture, writing, language

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坟

fén

HSK 7

土(earth)

grave

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紊

wěn

HSK 7

糸(silk)

disorderly, confused, chaotic

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纹

wén

HSK 7

纟(silk)

line, pattern, grain

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蚊

wén

HSK 7

虫(insect)

old variant of 蚊[wen2]

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刘

liú

Expansion

刂(knife)

surname Liu, to kill, battle-ax

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彥

Expansion

彡(hair)

—

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忞

mín

Expansion

心(heart)

to encourage oneself

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汶

wèn

Expansion

氵(water)

Wen River in northwest Sichuan (same as 汶川); classical name of river in Shandong, used to refer to Qi 齊國|齐国

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炆

wén

Expansion

火(fire)

(Cantonese) to simmer; to cook over a slow fire

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玟

mín

Expansion

王(jade)

jade-like stone

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紋

Expansion

糹(thread)

—

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雯

wén

Expansion

雨(rain)

multicolored clouds

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