I did not forget our further studies into radicals. If you
have not read my previous posts regarding strokes and radicals, I recommend
reading and understanding those topics first.
Radicals are
important because it will help you recognize words faster and can clue you into
their sounds or meaning. For the sake of simplicity, I will mostly refer to
section headers as radicals. In our previous post about Section Headers, not every section
header is considered a radical, which is why the term “section header” was
created.
Let’s learn all the 214 radicals and recognize all of them.
The radical list is always in a specific order similar to ABCs in the English
alphabet so radical number one will always be ”一” and so forth. You don’t
have to memorize the order, but I do expect you to correctly guess the stroke
count of each radical. The higher the number of total strokes, the higher the number
on the radical/section header list.
This list is based on the Kanxi Dictionary and a bit of the CantoDict dictionary. Other dictionaries might categorize certain characters
into a different section header. There is no unified way to classify each
character. In order to learn, we would have to start somewhere with a
dictionary.
Today, we’ll go over all the section headers/radicals that
require only one stroke, which means your pen or brush will never leave the
paper until you are finished writing the radical. There are six radicals with
one stroke. Remember in a previous post, if possible, the characters are
usually written from top left and end at the bottom right. If a radical is
written the same way in both the simplified and traditional system, then I left
the simplified radical column blank.
Radical Number /
Section Header |
Traditional Radical
|
Simplified Radical
|
Pinyin
|
Jyutping
|
Meaning
|
1
|
一
|
yī
|
jat1
|
One
|
|
2
|
丨
|
gǔn
|
gwan2
|
Line
|
|
3
|
丶
|
zhǔ
|
zyu2
|
Comma
|
|
4
|
丿
|
piě
|
pit3
|
Slash
|
|
5
|
乙 (⺄, 乚)
|
yǐ
|
jyut3
|
Second
|
|
6
|
亅
|
jué
|
kyut3
|
Hook
|
#1) 一 (yī in Mandarin, jat1 in
Cantonese)
This radical should be familiar, right? If you’ve read my Introduction to Strokes post, this radical is actually one of the basic strokes called “橫” héng for “horizontal.”
Now, we’re giving this stroke an extra meaning of being the Chinese character
for the number “one.”
Let’s take a look at some
examples of characters that fall under the一section header
category:
Note: This list includes
simplified characters. Traditional characters are colored in blue font.
2 strokes
|
丁 丂 七 丄 丅 丆
|
3 strokes
|
万 丈 三 上 下 丌 与
|
4 strokes
|
不 丏 丐 丑 丒 专
|
5 strokes
|
且
丕
世 丘 丙 业 丛 东 丝
|
6 strokes
|
丞
丟 丠 両
|
7 strokes
|
丣 两 严
|
8 strokes
|
並 丧兩
|
Unfortunately, based on the examples, it’s hard to tell why these
characters are listed under the 一 section header. If we take a
look at the characters with a total of two strokes, we can easily tell that
these characters have an obvious héng
stroke as an identifier that is as long as the character width or longer. It
seems that these characters mostly have a strongly defined héng stroke either
on the top of bottom of a character.
Don’t worry about not
recognizing the characters; our purpose right now is to recognize the radical
in each of the characters. Though, if you do recognize some characters, good
for you!
#2) 丨(gǔn
in Mandarin, gwan2 in Cantonese)
The section header by itself does not have any meaning. It is one of
the basic stokes called the shù stroke, which is a vertical stroke. This can also be considered the numeral “1.”
Unfortunately, I could not figure out why it is called “gǔn” or “gwan2” as it does not
seem to be related to anything in particular. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_2,
this radical could also mean stick, which would make sense to me in Cantonese
except the Cantonese jyutping pronunciation of stick, is gwan3 and not gwan2. In
Mandarin, stick would be gun4 and not gun3. Or based on the translation of
kanji, they do use the character for stick 棒 as the equivalent translation. Perhaps, it is related to
stick as in 棍棒 (gwan3 paang5 in Cantonese)
or棍棒 (44 in Mandarin),
which in English means a “club” (the stick weapon or baseball kind of
definition). That has to be it.
Characters that fall in the丨category:
2 strokes
|
丩
|
3 strokes
|
个丫丬
|
4 strokes
|
中丮丯丰书
|
5 strokes
|
丱
|
6 strokes
|
串
|
7 strokes
|
丳
|
8 strokes
|
临
|
9 strokes
|
丵
|
You may notice that the丨section
header is always located either in the middle or on the right side of a
character. I don’t really consider丨as a actual radical, but a part of a
radical. In almost all cases, 丨 is considered the last
stroke in a character.
#3) 丶(zhǔin Mandarin, zyu2 in Cantonese)
This section header is considered one of the
basic strokes just like the section headers before it. The stroke by itself is not a distinct
character. This stroke is actually used as a comma in Chinese writing so the
name of this section header is called “comma.” If you recall, this stroke is
also called a “dot” but for purposes of being a section header, it really
represents a comma slash more than an actual dot.
Characters that fall in the丶section header:
2 strokes
|
丷
|
3 strokes
|
丸凡
|
4 strokes
|
丹为
|
5 strokes
|
主丼
|
7 strokes
|
丽
|
9 strokes
|
举
|
These comma section headers look like icing on the cake. They are
usually found at the top of or in the middle of a character.
#4) 丿(piě in Mandarin, pit3 in Cantonese)
Known for being one of the basic strokes, piě is commonly
known as a slash or a throw away stroke. If written by itself, it would not
have any specific meaning.
Characters that fall in the 丿section header:
2 strokes
|
乂乃 乄
|
3 strokes
|
久 乆 乇 么 义 乊 之 乡
|
4 strokes
|
乌 乏之乏
|
5 strokes
|
乍
乎 乐
|
6 strokes
|
丢 乑（乑 is a variant of 眾 or 众） 乒
乓 乔
|
7 strokes
|
乕
|
8 strokes
|
乖
|
9 strokes
|
乗
|
10 strokes
|
乘
|
Can you locate the section header in each character?
From what I notice from the characters located in the丿section
header, the piě section header can be found usually at the top of a character.
Otherwise, the section header can be found on the left, middle or bottom right.
#5) 乙 (yǐ in
Mandarin, jyut3 in
Cantonese), 乛 (zhé in Mandarin, zit3 in Cantonese) and 乚(3 in
Mandarin or jyut3 in
Cantonese)
Variants of radicals share the same section header. 乙 shares the section header with 乛 and 乚. Interestingly, if you break the radical 乙 down into two parts, you will have 乛, the upper part,
and 乚, the lower part.
乙 is commonly known as being
the “second” meaning in a series or list. It is the “B” in “ABCD.”
If you recall from the combination strokes section of a
previous post, 乛 is commonly known as the
break stroke, which changes directions based on the last stroke made on paper.
The meaning of 乚 involves a secret or a hidden
meaning. This is also a combination
stroke:
乙 / 乛 /乚 section header:
2 strokes
|
乜
九
|
3 strokes
|
乞
也 习
|
4 strokes
|
乢 乣 乤 乥
|
5 strokes
|
乧氹
|
6 strokes
|
乨 乩 乪 乫 乬 乭 乮 乯厾
|
7 strokes
|
乱 乲
|
8 strokes
|
乳 乴 乵 乶 乷 乸
|
9 strokes
|
乹 乺 乻 乼 乽
|
11 strokes
|
乾 乿 亀
|
12 strokes
|
亁
|
13 strokes
|
亂 亃 亄
|
14 strokes
|
|
If you
cannot see the last character in the 14 strokes row, then you might be
missing some Chinese fonts. Download more fonts or use this recommended page:
Did you find
where the radicals are located in each of the characters above? One thing for
sure is that each character has a gou (hook) stroke in it. If you can find the gou
stroke, you can find the stroke(s) connecting the gou to help you identify the
root radical. Or in the case of 乜 or 也, it looks like there are two
radicals in it: 乛
and 乚! One thing I did notice is
that it isn’t exactly clear sometimes which is the dominant radical or section
header. Did you see any of the previous section headers in some of the
characters? As I mentioned before in my radical post and I will paraphrase; when
in doubt, take an educated guess starting with the radical that sticks out the
most to you.
#6) 亅(jué in
Mandarin, kyut3 in Cantonese)
Besides
being a section header, the jué or kyut3 stroke is a combination stroke.
Otherwise known as a 竖钩 shùgōu
stroke in Mandarin or a 豎鉤 syu6
ngau1 stroke in Cantonese, a vertical stroke followed by a hook is specifically
called a jué or kyut3 stroke.
Characters
that are included in the亅category:
2 strokes
|
了
|
3 strokes
|
亇
|
4 strokes
|
予
|
6 strokes
|
争
|
7 strokes
|
爭
|
8 strokes
|
亊（simplified Korean character）
|
9 strokes
|
事
|
It is easy
to notice that the jué or kyut3 radical is always located at the bottom.
I’m proud to say that writing this blog requires a lot of
research and time, but we survived the first six radicals, all of which we
previously covered in an earlier post. Therefore, you are not learning a new
topic, but expanding on what you already know.
Again, I don’t want you to memorize any character, but to be able to
recognize the radicals themselves. Later on, the radicals will get more complex
and I want you to be able to identify each radical part as a whole and be able
to guess the correct section header.
