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:

采

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 3

采 (cǎi)

to pick, to gather, to select

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Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (采)

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

3 Active Tones

Tone 3cǎi

Tone 4cài

Tone 5

Family Characters (7)

Root: 采

采

cǎi

HSK 3

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

to pick, to gather, to select

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菜

cài

HSK 1

艹(plants)

vegetable, dish, food, or one's weak point

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彩

cǎi

HSK 3

彡(hair)

bright color, variety, applause, lottery prize

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踩

cǎi

HSK 6

足(foot)

variant of 踩[cai3]

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睬

cǎi

HSK 7

目(eye)

variant of 睬[cai3]

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採

Expansion

扌(hand)

—

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綵

Expansion

糹(silk)

—

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