岔 (chà): fork in a road

Meanings

1 fork in a road
2 branch
3 to diverge
4 to change the subject
5 to go wrong

Characters

岔

chà

fork; branch; to diverge

Examples

前面有个岔，走左边。

Qiánmiàn yǒu gè chà, zǒu zuǒbiān.

There's a fork ahead — take the left.

别岔开话题。

Bié chàkāi huàtí.

Don't change the subject.

Tips

usage

岔 appears in many useful compounds: 岔路 (chàlù, forked road), 岔开 (chàkāi, to diverge/change subject), 出岔子 (chū chàzi, something goes wrong). As a standalone verb it means to branch off or interrupt.

Components

radical

山 shān

mountain

Mountain radical at the bottom anchors the original scene: a trail in the hills splitting at a ridge. From that literal fork-in-the-mountain-road, 岔 widened to abstract forks — branching topics, going off course, changing the subject mid-conversation.

semantic

分 fēn

to divide; split

Top supplies the meaning: 分 'divide' shows a knife cutting something in two. Placed over 山, it tells you the picture is about a mountain splitting — a path forking. Also gives a faint phonetic clue: fēn drifted to chà in this compound.