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:

西

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 1

西 (xī)

the West

View Root Character Page Kangxi #146 (襾) · View Radical

Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (西)

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

3 Active Tones

Tone 1xī

Tone 3sǎ

Tone 4shài

Family Characters (13)

Root: 西

西

xī

HSK 1

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

the West

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晒

shài

HSK 4

日(sun)

variant of 曬|晒[shai4]

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洒

sǎ

HSK 5

氵(water)

to sprinkle

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牺

xī

HSK 6

牛(cow)

sacrifice

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栖

qī

HSK 7

木(tree)

to perch

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哂

shěn

Expansion

口(mouth)

(literary) to smile; to sneer

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垔

yīn

Expansion

土(earth)

to restrain; to dam a stream and change its direction

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恓

xī

Expansion

忄(heart)

troubled; vexed

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溧

lì

Expansion

氵(water)

name of a river

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硒

xī

Expansion

石(stone)

selenium (chemistry)

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粞

xī

Expansion

米(rice)

ground rice; thresh rice

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舾

xī

Expansion

舟(boat)

used in 舾裝|舾装[xi1 zhuang1]

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茜

qiàn

Expansion

艹(plants)

(bound form) Indian madder; munjeet (Rubia cordifolia); (bound form) madder red; dark red; alizarin crimson

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