The Radical Truth

7/23/2019 The Radical Truth

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Posted by Hollie atWrittenChinese.Com

I mentioned last week in my postWritten Chinese: Where do I start?that when I first

came to China, the idea of a radical was just as foreign as I was and being able to use

them to read had never even crossed my mind.

I remember the class when my Chinese teacher said we were going to do some writing.

She gave my friend and I one of those books with the grids they give to school children

and I just thought: I have no idea what Im doing!

You can call it defeatist, or a bad attitude, but I honestly thought that it was just too

complicated for little old me. Even as we started I felt like I couldnt even hold the pen

properly to make a stroke. Actually by the end of the class I quite enjoyed myself, but it

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wasnt until after a few weeks that she began to teach us about radicals. That was when I

got really excited about learning to read and write Chinese. The fact that characters had

a meaning, that they werent just lots of lines that sometimes made pretty pictures was

amazing! The penny dropped (from a great height), a light bulb went on after a longpowercut and I realised that maybe I actually got it and that even I had a chance to

learn to read and write Chinese.

We have written several posts focused on radicals and their meanings and it seems as

though a lot of you really understand the value of radicals. However, there are lots of

newcomers to Written Chinese and so it seems fitting to now explain the reason why

learning radicals is important in order to further your Chinese.

So lets start by having a look at the following characters:

,,,

Now lets have a look at the left side of all four characters. You can probably see that

what they all have in common is this:. This is a radical meaning person. The person

radical is also the stand alone character, the radical is just turned slightly on its side.

So what does that mean?

It means that these 4 charactersandare all related in some way to

people.

I guess what we need to remember is that this written language has existed for

thousands of years and has gone through many transitions, not all of them particularly

sympathetic to the meaning of a character. The result is that sometimes, the meaning of

a radical in relation to a character is a little hard to understand, because it is based on a

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traditional meaning. However, in this case the four characters have a direct connection to

theradical.

is a pictographic character so it can literally be taken apart. We have

meaning

person andmeaning tree (you can check out our blog post on: The Tree

Radicallater for more information on that.). So what would a person be doing stood next

to a tree? Having a rest of course! After hours of working in the fields, he sits down in the

shade of the tree and relaxes.

The meaning of(xi) is to have a rest. (Character breakdown:http://bit.ly/1tyJbO9)

The meaning of the next three is less obvious, but because of the radical you can tell that

they must have something to do with people.

(n) - You

(Character breakdown: http://bit.ly/1wcIruZ)

- (men) Plural marker for pronouns

(Character breakdown: http://bit.ly/1sOuN1X)

- (zu) To do

(Character breakdown: http://bit.ly/1xXlq0z)

A radical usually indicates themeaningof a character.

Lets do a little test and see if you know or can guess the radical and meaning of these

characters.

http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.writtenchinese.com&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNFmsieq1i1M2c9baHc4hJi1vdTY9Ahttp://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F1xXlq0z&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGWC9cjBXnPxdVmOSl2scSTpHCjkQhttp://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F1sOuN1X&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNF1R4jv5y_u076TEUDb_p6pYfE-5Ahttp://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F1wcIruZ&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNF31uyMZFgxsKBVhn4Qg_zfIrhlkAhttp://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F1tyJbO9&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNG53sePihxdQDeZEqgfb2yasrWuAghttp://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.writtenchinese.com%2Ftree-radical%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNEg-xHNd-fC24Ti2Eob8IujjjYIzAhttp://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.writtenchinese.com%2Ftree-radical%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNEg-xHNd-fC24Ti2Eob8IujjjYIzA


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Radicals are not only important to help us understand the meaning of the character, but

it also helps when using a dictionary. Now, I know most of us are using online dictionaries

and Chinese dictionary apps but there are still people using those things made of paper

(shock!). Basically, in order to use a(hn yc din) or Chinese Dictionary(made of paper) you need to have a good knowledge of radicals to find a characters.

(Mi Yng Zu) developed the radical-and-stroke-sorting principle during the Ming

Dynasty, which was published first within the(z hu) or Lexicon. This means that

characters are listed by radical and then ordered by the number of strokes needed to

write them. Actually, our own Chinese Dictionary Mobile Appalso uses a similar

function!

Here are some basic instructions for using a Chinese Dictionary:

1. First you need to know which radical the character was indexed under. You

can probably guess by using the element on the left or on top of the character.

2. Find the section of the dictionary related to that radical.

3. Count the strokes in the remainder of the character (not including the radical

strokes)

4. Find the pages that include the radical that also have the number of additional

strokes.

5. Find the character youre looking for, or repeat steps 1-3.

Let me give you an example.

I want to find this characterin the dictionary. So following my steps, first I need to

know which radical to look for...

http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.writtenchinese.com&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNFmsieq1i1M2c9baHc4hJi1vdTY9Ahttp://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.writtenchinese.com%2Fapps%2Fchinese-dictionary-mobile-app%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGRpR6Ta3nHJrNoyhWFQtjbn2Yb2Qhttp://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fdictionary.writtenchinese.com%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNF5Gy6LagWgPFq5nzuoSnHlU0k1lg


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1. I looked at the left of the character, and found(r), the sun radical.

2. Now I know that this character has the radical, I can find the pages in the

dictionary.



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Got it!

3+4. Now, I have to find the section with theradical and +7 strokes. I should check

out page 634 for the character ''.



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5. There it is at the bottom of the page!

If you werent sure,(wn) means evening or night.

So, grab yourself a dictionary and get searching!



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We all know that learning Chinese is a challenge, but whats important is not to feel

defeated. Learn at your own pace, with tools that work for you and most of all enjoy itand treat it like an adventure!

Wed love to hear from you if you have any Chinese learning problems. If youve

overcome difficulties remember stroke patterns, tones or even new vocabulary, please

share your stories with us and otherWrittenChinese.Comfollowers.

Happy Studying!


The Radical Truth

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