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:

民

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 3

民 (mín)

the people

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (民)

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

3 Active Tones

Tone 2mín

Tone 3mǐn

Tone 5

Family Characters (10)

Root: 民

民

mín

HSK 3

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

the people

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眠

mián

HSK 5

目(eye)

to sleep

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岷

mín

Expansion

山(mountain)

name of a river in Sichuan

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抿

mǐn

Expansion

扌(hand)

to smooth hair with a wet brush; (of a mouth, wing etc) to close lightly

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敃

mǐn

Expansion

攵(strike)

strong; robust; vigorous

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昬

Expansion

日(sun)

—

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泯

mǐn

Expansion

氵(water)

variant of 泯[min3]

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湣

mǐn

Expansion

氵(water)

(ancient character used in posthumous titles of monarchs); old variant of 憫|悯[min3]

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珉

mín

Expansion

王(jade)

alabaster, jade-like stone

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苠

mín

Expansion

艹(plants)

multitude; skin of bamboo

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