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:

月

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 1

月 (yuè)

moon, month

View Root Character Page Kangxi #74 (月) · View Radical

Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (月)

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

3 Active Tones

Tone 2chéng

Tone 3yǒu

Tone 4yuè

Family Characters (7)

Root: 月

月

yuè

HSK 1

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

moon, month

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有

yǒu

HSK 1

+ 月

to have; there is

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钥

yuè

HSK 7

钅(metal)

key

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刖

yuè

Expansion

刂(knife)

to amputate one or both feet (punishment in imperial China) (one of the five mutilating punishments 五刑[wu3 xing2])

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塍

chéng

Expansion

土(earth)

variant of 塍[cheng2]

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朔

shuò

Expansion

月(moon)

beginning; first day of lunar month

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炙

zhì

Expansion

火(fire)

to broil; to roast

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