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:

最

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 1

最 (zuì)

variant of 最[zui4]

Family Characters

HSK Words

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

2 Active Tones

Tone 1cuō

Tone 4zuì

Root: 最

最

zuì

HSK 1

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

variant of 最[zui4]

嘬

chuài

Expansion

(literary) to gnaw; to eat ravenously

撮

cuō

Expansion

to pick up (a powder etc) with the fingertips; to scoop up

蕞

zuì

Expansion

to assemble; small