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:

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Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 2

查 (zhā)

surname Zha; variant of 楂[zha1]

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Family Characters

HSK Words

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

3 Active Tones

Tone 1zhā

Tone 2chá

Tone 5

Family Characters (9)

Root: 查

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zhā

HSK 2

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

surname Zha; variant of 楂[zha1]

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渣

zhā

HSK 7

氵(water)

slag, dregs, scum

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喳

chā

Expansion

口(mouth)

used in 喳喳[cha1 cha1] and 喳喳[cha1 cha5]

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揸

zhā

Expansion

扌(hand)

to stretch fingers out

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楂

chá

Expansion

木(tree)

fell trees; raft

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猹

chá

Expansion

犭(dog)

Badger-like wild animal

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碴

chá

Expansion

石(stone)

fault; glass fragment

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馇

chā

Expansion

饣(food)

to cook and stir (animal feed); (coll.) to simmer (porridge etc)

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齄

Expansion

鼻(nose)

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