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:

贝

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 4

贝 (bèi)

shellfish / cowrie / currency

View Root Character Page Kangxi #154 (貝) · View Radical

Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (贝)

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

2 Active Tones

Tone 2zéi

Tone 4bèi

Family Characters (8)

Root: 贝

贝

bèi

HSK 4

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

shellfish / cowrie / currency

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败

bài

HSK 4

攵(strike)

to defeat, to fail, to lose

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坝

bà

HSK 7

土(earth)

(used in place names) plain; flatland; (dialect) sandbar; shoal

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狈

bèi

HSK 7

犭(dog)

a legendary wolf / distressed / wretched

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贼

zéi

HSK 7

戎(weapons)

thief; robber; extremely

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呗

bài

Expansion

口(mouth)

(bound form) to chant (from Sanskrit "pāṭhaka")

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赘

zhuì

Expansion

敖(leisure)

(bound form) superfluous; (bound form) (of a man) to move into the household of one's in-laws after marrying; (of the bride's parents) to have the groom join one's household

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钡

bèi

Expansion

钅(metal)

barium (chemistry)

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