Several parts combine into one character.

Compound ideograph: 言 (speech) + 舌 (tongue) = to talk / story / conversation. Where 言 (from earlier batch) is "speech as substance / words", 話 specifically captures the act of speaking — tongue moving, language flowing. Three forms: 繁體 話 / 新字体 話 / 简体 话 (with the speech-radical simplified to 讠).

Mandarin: huà, falling 4th tone. 话 (huà) is the everyday word for "spoken language / speech". 说话 (shuōhuà, to speak), 电话 (diànhuà, telephone — "electric speech"), 普通话 (pǔtōnghuà, Mandarin / "common speech" — the official term for Standard Mandarin), 笑话 (xiàohua, joke), 童话 (tónghuà, fairy tale / children's story), 神话 (shénhuà, myth), 对话 (duìhuà, dialogue). 普通话 (Mandarin language) is the term every Chinese learner sees.

Japanese: on-reading ワ (wa) for compounds — 会話 (kaiwa, conversation — every Japanese textbook chapter is titled with 会話 sections), 童話 (dōwa, fairy tale), 神話 (shinwa, myth), 世話 (sewa, care / looking after — important social vocabulary), 電話 (denwa, telephone). Kun-readings: はな.す (hana.su, to speak) and はなし (hanashi, story / talk / conversation). The everyday verb 話す and the noun 話 (hanashi) are both extremely high-frequency. お話 (ohanashi, "your honored story" — polite "what you said") is conversational politesse.

世話 (sewa) is a culturally important Japanese concept — "to be in someone's 世話" means to be cared for or looked after, and the phrase お世話になります (osewa ni narimasu, "I will be in your care") is the standard Japanese opening of any new working relationship.

Memory aid: speech-words + tongue — the act of talking, given two visual ingredients.