Read Chinese & Kanji

Chinese words are represented by "Characters". A Chinese character is composed of "Radicals". It might be made of 1 radical, 2 radicals or 3 radicals, etc. 

The simplest characters are made of a single radical. Here, the radical is same as the character (ie they are the same thing).

There is an official list of 214 radicals. This list is the first 214 characters you should be familiar with.

The advanced characters are a compound of 2 or more radicals (joined together). Because 2 or 3 radicals have to be compressed into an advanced character, often the radicals have "short-forms". These short-forms might be the radical made smaller -or- squashed thinly -or- flattened.

Every radical is written using a number of strokes (of the pen). Over the centuries, these strokes have been simplified into a set of standard "Markings". 

There are 9 Markings.

RADICALS - Markings are combined to become radicals. Let's look at a few examples:

Slash-Sickle example: Combining 丿 with 乚  gives us  儿 . This radical appears quite a lot attached to other characters (like a suffix) to give an auxiliary meaning. 

When attached to 目 "eye", it becomes 見 "see".  When attached to 十 "ten", we get 九 "nine".

Slash-Hook example: Combining 丿 with 亅  also appears quite often.

When attached to 日 "sun", we get 月 "moon".  When attached to 十 "ten", it becomes 力 "power, force".

Below are 2 tables displaying the 214 radicals. 

The list is overwhelming. 

The radicals are arranged by Strokes (of the pen).

radical # / strokes

  1 -   6 /  1

  7 -  29 /  2

 30 -  60 /  3

 61 -  94 /  4

 95 - 117 /  5

118 - 146 /  6

147 - 166 /  7

Take your time glancing over the list to get a feel for the style being used.

The first list shows the 214 radicals using "simplified chinese", which is the modern standard style.

The second list highlights "variations" (in yellow).

There are 2 reasons for the variations:

(a) Some of the variations are in "traditional chinese" (instead of "simplified")

(b) Some of the variation are the "short-forms". The short-forms are used when compressing several radicals into an advanced character.

Japanese Kanji and Korean Hanja use Traditional characters. Traditional chinese characters actually look more chinese (in style). However, Simplified chinese does save a lot of strokes (of the pen).

For "short-form", some radicals have thin forms while some have flattened forms. A few radicals have both thin and flattened forms, depending on its design. Thin forms are typically on the left side, while flattened forms are either placed above or below.

look, see 见  見  / shell, treasure 贝  貝 

/ page, sheet 页 頁 / mother 母 毋 

  / fly 飞 飛 / car vehicle 车 車 

 / door, gate 门 門  / leather 韦 韋 

 / horse 马 馬  / fish 鱼 魚 

 / bird 鸟 鳥  / turtle 龟 龜 

 / tooth 齿 齒