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:

直

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 2

直 (zhí)

straight

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (直)

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

2 Active Tones

Tone 2zhí

Tone 4zhì

Family Characters (7)

Root: 直

直

zhí

HSK 2

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

straight

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值

zhí

HSK 3

亻(person)

value, worth, on duty

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植

zhí

HSK 4

木(tree)

to plant

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置

zhì

HSK 4

罒(net)

to place, to install, to buy

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殖

zhí

HSK 6

歹(death)

to grow

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埴

zhí

Expansion

土(earth)

soil with large clay content

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稙

zhí

Expansion

禾(grain)

early-planted crop

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