Chinese Radicals | An Introduction to Understanding Them (PLUS Free Quiz, Video & PDF)

What are Chinese Radicals and how do we use them?

This is your complete guide to understanding how they work.

WANT YOUR FREE CHINESE RADICALS PDF DOWNLOAD – get it here

Chinese is difficult, we all know that much, but….

I sometimes really think the women of Jiangyong country in Hunan province were onto something when they invented the Nüshu script.

I mean, wouldn’t it be much easier to learn 600 or 700 symbols than the approximately 2600 characters you need to know to pass the HSK 6 exam?

So yes, Chinese is difficult.

With the tones, and the characters, and the various dialects (or hua) that practically every place has, many people get the urge to simply give up.

A lot of people also say that there is no logic when learning Chinese. However, in reality, there is!

If your mother tongue is English or German and if you studied, for example, a Romance language, of course Chinese will seem difficult and often incomprehensible.

But you shouldn’t give up…

Instead, you should find different methods to learn the characters faster and better. Learning the Chinese radicals is one of them.

Chinese Radicals || The Full List

Chinese Radicals || What’s the Fuss About?

Chinese Radicals || Where do They Belong?

Chinese Radicals || Have They Changed and What’s Their Meaning?

FREE DOWNLOAD || FREE CHINESE RADICALS PDF

FREE DOWNLOAD || FREE CHINESE RADICALS POSTER

BONUS QUIZ || Radicals Quiz | How Many Do You Know?

Chinese Radicals || FAQ’s

Want to learn some more basics?

Check out our blog about the most frequently used Chinese measure words!

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Chinese measure words can be one of the most intimidating and confusing things about learning Chinese for beginners – but don’t worry, we’ve got it covered.

Chinese Radicals || The Full List

Chinese Radicals || What’s All The Fuss?

What’s so radical about this method?

Take 刀 – the knife/sword radical. By understanding the meaning of this radical we can guess what the character might be related to…!

Studying radicals enables you to do this and it also makes it possible for you to look up a character in the dictionary.

I know, I know, who uses paper dictionaries anymore? Good skill to have though!

Think about it!

Learning Chinese radicals will also allow you to group characters with similar components according to their semantic (meaning) or phonetic (pronunciation) characteristics.

Imagine radicals as building blocks in the larger scheme of the Chinese language.

They can help you learn characters easier and faster, and, eventually, you will be able to use them to swiftly memorise new words by knowing how different characters are combined.

During the Ming Dynasty, Mei Ying Zuo developed the radical and stroke method which was published in the first Lexicon (zì huì).

What does this mean?

Well, that characters in the dictionary are actually listed by radical and then ordered by the number of strokes.

Stroke order is also very important in Chinese.

Have you ever noticed that, when you write a character in Pleco, the app sometimes doesn’t recognise it?

This is because your stroke order is wrong! But that’s a different topic.

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Chinese Radicals || Where Do They Belong?

DEFINITION – So, a radical or key (部首, bùshǒu) is a graphic component of a Chinese character.

This means that every character contains a radical. Some radicals can in fact also be characters, like the word for mouth (口, kǒu), and they are used in the formation of other characters.

So, you should rather think of radicals as components of a character.

How many radicals are there in the Chinese language?

There are 214 radicals in the Chinese language and they can appear just about anywhere in a character.

For example, in the character 好, the radical 女 (nǚ, meaning female, woman) is on the left side of the character and in the character 闯 (chuăng; to rush, to break through) the radical 门 (mén, door) is outside.

FUN WAY TO LEARN – So let’s look at the 闯 character more closely: you will see that it shows a horse (马, mă) breaking through the door.

Hence the meaning “to break through”. Makes sense, right?

Let’s see another example. The verb 取 (qǔ, to take) consists of the components for hand 又 and an ear 耳, meaning a hand that is taking an ear.

Ear removal was a common way of counting casualties after a battle, so the character’s meaning makes sense – in a gross kind of way.

It won’t always be possible to apply this method (of making sense of a character) when learning them though.

Why?

Mainly because some of them changed drastically from pictograms, they lost their original meaning or their etymology is connected to something you simply don’t understand.

Maybe the character changed significantly during its simplification. However, this method will definitely help you a lot to make connections between various components and characters.

USEFUL PRODUCT ALERT! You’ll have seen above we used an image from the Chineasy product range. This is a super brand which bases itself on beautiful designs. We believe a deck of Chineasy cards is a great way to learn Radicals.

You can purchase some from Amazon here. We hope it’s useful.

Please note the link above is affiliate link. LTL Mandarin School take a small cut of any sales made, with the rest going to Amazon and the lister of the product.

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How have Chinese Radicals changed and what is their meaning?

The radicals are also distorted and changed when they are combined in characters. These are called the variants of the radical.

So, let’s see what some of the most common Chinese radicals are and how they change:

1. 人 “man” → 亻 on the left (used in 你 – you and 他– he)
2. 心 “heart” (used in the meaning of feeling, mental activities) → 忄on the left (used in 情 – emotion and 忙 – busy)
3. 手 “hand” → 扌on the left (used in 推 – push and 拉 – pull)
4. 水 “water” → 氵 on the left (used in 河 – river and 海 – ocean)
5. 行 “going” (literally ‘left step’) → stays unchanged on the left (used in 行 – to walk and 往 – towards, bound to)

You can also group Chinese Radicals by their phonetic component or by their meaning – for example, characters can be connected to nature (such as 土, meaning Earth, 日 meaning Sun or月 meaning Moon), people (the previously mentioned 女, 手 or 心 / 忄) or maybe animals (马 meaning horse, 虫 meaning insect or犭meaning animal).

So there you go. I hope we managed to persuade you to have some fun while studying Chinese.

Because that’s what it is all about!

Feeling ready to tackle a quiz on the Chinese Radicals? Check it out below!

Chinese Radicals || FREE PDF

Two amazing downloads for you here!

First we’ve got our beautifully designed Radicals PDF which you can save to your computer and also print out if you wish.

A great way to get familiar with the radicals of Chinese.

If you want to go one step further and get a bigger version for your wall… read on!

Chinese Radicals || FREE POSTER

And now for the amazing Radicals Poster.

You can get this for free if you share on your Facebook page!

Chinese Radicals || FREE Quiz

Want to put your knowledge of Chinese radicals and their variants to the test?

Then have a go at our Free Radical Quiz!!

It’s multiple choice so it’s worth a try even if you’re not sure. You’ll also be able to see which ones you got right and wrong.

Why not let us know your score below?

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So clearly you enjoy learning Chinese but ever been curious about Korean and Japanese as well? If you check these out:

• Japanese vs Korean vs Mandarin – Find out which is really the hardest and how they relate (if at all). This is a fascinating read.
• The Korean Alphabet – Unlike Mandarin Korean does have an alphabet and it’s actually really easy to learn. Find out how.

Chinese Radicals || FAQs

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