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:
老
Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 1
老 (lǎo)
old, venerable, experienced, prefix for familiarity
4
Family Characters
1
HSK Words
Tone Fan-out (老)
How this root's pronunciation drifts across the Mandarin tone spectrum:
1 Active Tones
Tone 3lǎo
Family Characters (4)
Root: 老老
lǎo
HSK 1Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)
old, venerable, experienced, prefix for familiarity