包 is both a character and a character component

In addition to being a character on its own, 包 is often used as a phonetic component in other Chinese characters.

When used as a component in a Chinese character, the phonetic component 包 brings its pronunciation “bāo” to the words it’s in, or you can expect the words that contain 包 to have a pronunciation sound close to “bāo”. In fact, as a rule of thumb, most words that contain 包 will either be pronounced “bāo” or have the same pinyin, but a different tone, like “bào” or “bǎo”. You’ll also find words which are pronounced pao below.

These characters all contain 包 and are pronounced either “bāo”, “bào” or “bǎo”:

苞

bāo

bud

Another possible pronunciation for the character component 包 is “pao”

The Chinese language is over 5000 years old, so, unsurprisingly, some characters’ pronunciations have evolved a little over time.

In addition to sometimes being pronounced “pao” with a different tone, 包 the phonetic component will also frequently be found in Chinese words pronounced “pǎo”, “pào” or “páo”, three pronunciations which are only one letter off (and a tone) from the sound “bāo”.