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:

虚

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 5

虚 (xū)

emptiness, void, virtual

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (虚)

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

3 Active Tones

Tone 1xū

Tone 4qù

Tone 5

Family Characters (7)

Root: 虚

虚

xū

HSK 5

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

emptiness, void, virtual

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墟

xū

HSK 7

土(earth)

ruins; (literary) village

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嘘

xū

Expansion

口(mouth)

to exhale slowly; to hiss

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歔

xū

Expansion

欠(yawn)

to snort

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觑

qù

Expansion

见(see)

to spy; watch for

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覷

Expansion

見(see)

—

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魖

xū

Expansion

鬼(ghost)

used in 黑魖魖[hei1 xu1 xu1]

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