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:

马

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)HSK 1

马 (mǎ)

horse

View Root Character Page Kangxi #187 (馬) · View Radical

Family Characters

HSK Words

Tone Fan-out (马)

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

4 Active Tones

Tone 1mā

Tone 2má

Tone 3mǎ

Tone 4mà

Family Characters (9)

Root: 马

马

mǎ

HSK 1

Phonetic Root (声旁 / Sound Core)

horse

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吗

má

HSK 1

口(mouth)

what

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妈

mā

HSK 1

女(woman)

mom

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码

mǎ

HSK 4

石(stone)

code, number, yard, size

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骂

mà

HSK 5

口(mouth)

to scold

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杩

mà

Expansion

木(tree)

headboard

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犸

mǎ

Expansion

犭(dog)

used in 猛獁|猛犸[meng3 ma3]; Taiwan pr. [ma4]

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玛

mǎ

Expansion

王(jade)

used in 瑪瑙|玛瑙[ma3 nao3]

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蚂

mā

Expansion

虫(insect)

used in 螞螂|蚂螂[ma1 lang2]

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