Section Headers or Radicals in Depth – One Stroke, Radicals #1-6

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kangxi_radicals

http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk

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 (gun4 bang4 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(zhǔ in 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(yin3 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: shù wān gōu. 

Characters that fall into the 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:

http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/t/ttf-arphic-ukai/ttf-arphic-ukai_0.2.20080216.1.orig.tar.gz

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.