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:

曷

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

曷 (hé)

why; how

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (曷)

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

5 Active Tones

Tone 1hē

Tone 2hé

Tone 3kě

Tone 4è

Tone 5

Family Characters (15)

Root: 曷

曷

hé

Expansion

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

why; how

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喝

hē

HSK 1

口(mouth)

to drink

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渴

kě

HSK 1

氵(water)

thirsty

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歇

xiē

HSK 5

欠(yawn)

to rest

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揭

jiē

HSK 6

扌(hand)

to uncover, expose, or take the lid off

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竭

jié

HSK 7

立(stand)

to exhaust

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遏

HSK 7

辶(walking)

to restrain; to check

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猲

hè

Expansion

犭(dog)

frightened; terrified

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碣

jié

Expansion

石(stone)

stone tablet

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羯

jié

Expansion

羊(sheep)

Jie people, a tribe of northern China around the 4th century; ram, esp. gelded

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葛

gě

Expansion

艹(plants)

surname Ge

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蝎

xiē

Expansion

虫(insect)

variant of 蠍|蝎[xie1]

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褐

hè

Expansion

衤(clothes)

brown; gray or dark color

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謁

Expansion

言(speech)

—

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谒

yè

Expansion

讠(speech)

to visit (a superior)

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