说话
shuōhuà · HSK 1
talk
💬 说 = speak + 话 = words/speech; literally 'speak words' = to talk
说话 decomposes cleanly: 说 (shuō) means 'to speak/say' and 话 (huà) means 'words/speech'. Together they form the everyday verb 'to talk' or 'to speak'. The 讠/言 radical in both characters marks them as speech-related.
说 — speech radical 讠(言) + 兑
说 combines the speech radical 讠(言, 'words') with 兑, which acts as the phonetic component. The character originally meant 'to explain' or 'to speak,' and broadened to mean 'say' or 'talk.' The same graph is also read 'yuè' meaning 'pleased,' a sense later written 悦.
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.'