江
jiāng · HSK 4
river
🌊 江 = 氵 (water) + 工 (gōng) — water radical gives meaning, 工 hints at sound
A phono-semantic compound: the 氵 radical marks it as water-related, while 工 (gōng) once cued a similar Old Chinese reading that drifted to jiāng. Classically refers to the Yangtze; now any large river.
江 — water radical 氵 + 工 (gōng, phonetic)
江 is a classic semantic-phonetic compound: 氵 (water) gives the meaning 'river,' while 工 supplies the sound. Originally it referred specifically to the Yangtze River, the great river of southern China. Over time its meaning broadened to mean 'large river' in general, while 河 became the common word for rivers in the north.