翻
fān · HSK 4
to turn over
🔄 番 (turn/foreign) + 羽 (feather) — flipping pages like fluttering feathers
Left side 番 gives the sound fān and the sense of turning; right side 羽 means feather. Together: to flip, turn over, or rummage. Common in 翻译 (translate = turn one language into another) and 翻身 (turn the body over).
翻 — 番 (turn/sequence) + 羽 (feathers)
A semantic-phonetic compound. 羽 (feathers) gives the meaning, evoking a bird flipping or fluttering its wings, while 番 supplies the sound. From this 'flip over' sense it extended to 'turn over,' 'overturn,' and later 'translate' — that is, turning words from one language into another.