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:

章

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 3

章 (zhāng)

chapter

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (章)

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

3 Active Tones

Tone 1zhāng

Tone 4zhàng

Tone 5

Family Characters (14)

Root: 章

章

zhāng

HSK 3

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

chapter

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商

shāng

HSK 1

冏(bright)

commerce, merchant, consult, Shang Dynasty

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障

zhàng

HSK 6

阝(city)

to block

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彰

zhāng

HSK 7

彡(hair)

clear, conspicuous, manifest

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嫜

zhāng

Expansion

女(woman)

husband's father

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嶂

zhàng

Expansion

山(mountain)

cliff; range of peaks

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樟

zhāng

Expansion

木(tree)

camphor; Cinnamonum camphara

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漳

zhāng

Expansion

氵(water)

Zhang river in Fujian

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獐

zhāng

Expansion

犭(dog)

river deer; roebuck

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璋

zhāng

Expansion

王(jade)

jade tablet used in ceremonies, shaped like the left or right half of a "gui" 圭[gui1], also given to male infants to play with

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瘴

zhàng

Expansion

疒(sickness)

malaria; miasma

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蟑

zhāng

Expansion

虫(insect)

used in 蟑螂[zhang1 lang2]

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鄣

zhāng

Expansion

阝(city)

place name

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鱆

Expansion

魚(fish)

—

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