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:
雷
4
Family Characters
2
HSK Words
Tone Fan-out (雷)
How this root's pronunciation drifts across the Mandarin tone spectrum:
2 Active Tones
Tone 2léi
Tone 3lěi
Family Characters (4)
Root: 雷雷
léi
HSK 4Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)
thunder
擂
léi
Expansionto pound (with a mortar and pestle); to hit (a person); to beat (a drum); to bang on (a door); (dialect) to scold