{"id":3616,"date":"2020-05-07T20:07:03","date_gmt":"2020-05-07T20:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clozemaster.com\/blog\/?p=3616"},"modified":"2020-06-01T19:35:36","modified_gmt":"2020-06-01T19:35:36","slug":"chinese-radicals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clozemaster.com\/blog\/chinese-radicals\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Radicals: What Are They and How to Use Them"},"content":{"rendered":"

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One of the most exciting aspects of learning Chinese for me is learning how to read and write characters. The logic, history, and complexity behind them is just fascinating. But without any way to break them down, they quickly become an overwhelming, seemingly impossible task. That\u2019s where Chinese radicals come in \u2013 a way to make sense of the chaotic world of Chinese characters.<\/p>\n

What are Chinese radicals?<\/h2>\n

All Chinese characters are made up of a finite number of components which are put together in different orders and different combinations.<\/p>\n

Chinese radicals are what we could think of as the base component of each character. It is usually the leftmost part of the character. Chinese radicals can hold information about the character meaning and\/or sound. There are around 200 radicals in Chinese, and they are used to index and categorize characters.<\/p>\n

Do you really need to know Chinese radicals?<\/h2>\n

Chinese radicals have many important uses. Chinese dictionaries are traditionally sorted by the radicals \u2013 first by the number of strokes in the radical, then the number of strokes in the characters. So, back in the day it was very important to understand radicals. Nowadays, with the thousands of different ways to look something up online? Not so much (although looking things up this way can be a good way to get familiar with character components).<\/p>\n

So, can we forget about radicals already? Definitely not. Native speakers and successful learners alike use Chinese radicals to master Chinese reading and writing.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s put it this way. If you start learning Chinese characters, and you try to memorise each one individually, you will spend a lot of time on each character, and as a result you will learn fewer characters over more time. When you relate them to one another using radicals, you can learn more characters quickly.<\/p>\n

In other words, learning Chinese radicals is a more efficient way to learn Chinese characters.<\/p>\n

Things to understand about Chinese radicals<\/h2>\n