形聲字/形声字」（Xíngshēng zì） （picto-phonetic charac - Cchatty

形聲字/形声字」（Xíngshēng zì）
（picto-phonetic characters）
As today we’re exploring how to read out loud a character you’ve never seen before, our focus is on phonetic components.
In fact, more than 80% of all Chinese characters are pictophonetic characters.
Let’s see what a phonetic component is precisely and how you can easily use it to know how a character sounds!
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Picto-phonetic characters are made of two pieces, called components.
These two components are usually a meaning (also known as semantic) component and a phonetic component.
Meaning components and phonetic components really are the building blocks of the Chinese written language.
The semantic part is called 「部首」（radical）. It refers to the fearure of this character, for example:
The semantic part of
the character「獅」is 犭.The radical 犭means dogs, animals. So we khow that 「獅」is one of the animals.
In most of the cases, when you identify a phonetic component in a character, the character will be pronounced either exactly like the component or have a sound pretty close to it.
Phonetic components are elements in a Chinese character that give you clues on a character’s pronunciation.
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How to spot a phonetic component in a Chinese character？
So you have your Chinese character in front of you. You may be wondering: is there an easy way to spot which part of the character is the phonetic component
The Chinese like to say:
「有边念边，没边念中间吗」
（Yǒu biān niàn biān, méi biān niàn zhōngjiān）
If there is a side, read the side. If there is no side, read the middle.
The phonetic component can indeed often be found on the right side of a character.
（i.e. 「獅」，radical：犭，pronunciation：師）
But, it’s also common for the phonetic component to be below the meaning component, for example： 「爸」，radical： 父，pronunciation: 巴.