Chinese Character Decomposer
Break down Chinese characters into their semantic (meaning) and phonetic (sound) components. Understanding components makes characters much easier to remember.
Try: 明 / 学 / 校 / 妈 / 请 / 海 / 好
明
=
日
semantic
月
semantic
日
semantic component
sun → brightness, time
月
semantic component
moon → brightness, time
Tip: Semantic components hint at meaning, phonetic components hint at pronunciation.
Why decompose characters?
Most Chinese characters are composed of 2-3 components. Once you understand the common 200 components, recognizing 5000+ characters becomes much easier. Semantic components tell you what the character means; phonetic components suggest how it sounds (with ~70% accuracy historically).