| Radicals are a great way to figure out what a character is if you aren’t quite familiar with it but before we get into that let’s give you the definition of a radical when it comes to studying Chinese characters: A Chinese radical (Chinese: 部首; pinyin: bùshǒu; literally: “section header”) is a graphical component of a Chinese character under which the character is traditionally listed in a Chinese dictionary. This component is often a semantic indicator (that is, an indicator of the meaning of the character), though in some cases the original semantic connection has become obscure, owing to changes in character meaning over time.  Let’s give you some examples: The radical that refers to Water in Chinese has three strokes. You see it for example on the left side of the character 海 (hǎi), meaning sea or big lake. This means that any character you see with these three strokes on the left side of the character has a relation in one way or another to water. This is great because even if the character is unrecognisable to you, as you learn more and more you’ll understand that because the water radical is included you can narrow down the options on what the character might be. Here are some examples of the water radical in action: Liquid: 液 – yè River: 河 – hé Foam or Bubble: 泡 – pào So now you want to know how many radicals are there in the Chinese language, right? In total there are 214 in the traditional Kangxi 康熙 radical system. Some appear on the left side of a character, some on top, underneath, or on the right and some are much more frequently seen than others. Some radicals aren’t quite as obvious but have some form of underlying meaning. Here are some more examples of the more obvious radicals: The radical for person is 亻(rén). An example of that radical in action is the character 你 which means you (nǐ). The radical for ice is 冫(bīng). An example of that radical in action is the character 冻 which means freeze (dòng). The radical for door is 门 (mén). An example of that radical in action is the character 间 which means room (jiān) Notice how the third radical 门 surrounds the character to make 间 rather than appearing on the left side. Radicals come in all shapes and size but can often give clues as to the meaning of the character upon first glance. |
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