童话
tónghuà · HSK 4
fairy tale
📖 童 child + 话 speech = stories told for children
童 means child (the 立 on top often hints at standing/young, 里 below). 话 means speech or talk (言 speech radical + 舌 tongue). Together: child-speech, the genre of fairy tales.
话 — speech radical 讠 (言) + tongue 舌
话 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 讠 (simplified from 言, 'speech') gives the meaning, signaling something said, while 舌 ('tongue') hints at the sound and reinforces the speaking sense. The traditional form 話 makes the 言 element explicit; today 话 means 'speech, talk, words.'