Kanji form radicals

 To fully understand this post, I recommend you to read Radicals overview and Pure radicals posts.

 

Now, the main topic of this post is Kanji. But it's going to be only about the Kanji serving as radicals in other Kanji.

Every person, brave enough to start learning Kanji, asks himself with which Kanji should I start? And the answer is - with the most common ones. It's also a good tactic with radicals. But here we are killing two beards with one stone. The popular Kanji in this post also serving as radicals.

Note:

Some of the Kanji radicals, may change form, while written as part of another Kanji. They must squeeze into the square of the Kanji and can loose some of their lines or change considerably, but their meaning stays the same.

The Kanji radicals from this list, appear as part of 75% of the "education Kanji", so it's a good start.

Here 43 radicals and their alternative forms, with the frequent positioning:

Kanji                             other forms        examples

水 (みず water)                      氵            氽 永,    治   note: as radical appears mostly as 氵.

人 (ひと person)                   亻            欠,    何  note: as radical appears mostly as 亻.

手 (て hand)                          扌           持

心 (こころ heart)                 忄/⺗          芯 恭,   性

刀 (かたな, トウ sword)          刂             召,   切, 刊,   分

火 (ひ, カ fire)                       灬             炎, 点,   灯,   狄

食 (しょく eat, food)             飠             餤

犬 (いぬ, ケン dog)                 犭            吠,   嗅,   狂

衣 (ころも garment)              衤             初,   表

竹 (たけ bamboo)                 ⺮             竿

示 (しめす show, cult)            礻             奈,   祁  

行 (ぎょうにん                       彳              垳,   徃

walking person) 

口 (くち mouth)                                   can appear in any position: 可 右 叨 兄 如

木 (き tree)                                          相,    森,   林

言 (ことword)                                       語

日 (ひ, ニチ sun/day)                            白,   明,   旱

糸 (いと silk)                                        糺,   索

幺 (いとがしら short thread)                 幼         

月 (つき, にくmoon/meat/organ)          服,   青,   朝  note: meat came from 肉 (⺼↔月)      

土 (つち ground)                                  地,   赤,   汢,   至

貝 (かい shell)                                      則,   頁

女 (おんな, ジョwoman)                         奴,   委

金 (かね, キン money, gold)                   針

一 (いち one)                                        三

十 (ジュウ, と ten)                                 早,   什,   古

田 (た, デン rice field)                           can appear in any position:男 畄 佃 町 迪

大 (おお, ダイbig)                                  夲,   突

山 (やま, サン mountain)                       can appear in any position: 乢 出 仙 屈 辿

目 (め eye)                                          見,   助 盻,   阻

雨 (あめ rain)                                       電

王 (おう king)                                       狂

石 (stone)                                           岩,   妬,   研

力 (ちから power)                                 仂,   加,   男

弓 (ゆみ bow)                                       can appear in any position: 引 弖 兮 弗 弯

又 (また again)                                     殳,   奴

攵 (のぶん strike)                                  敏,   修

夂 (ふゆがしら winter)                           各,   処,   also in the center: 苳

酉 (とりalcohol)                                   酊,   酒

禾 (いね grain)                                      私,   禿

巾 (きん, はば cloth)                              市 凧,   帷

尸 (かたしろ, シ flag, corps)                   尼,   粐

寸 (すん, measurement)                        付,   寺  

車 (くるま vehicle)                                can appear in any position: 軋 俥 軣 暈 連

To see the full list of radicals, you can go here.

 

Pure radicals

To understand this post, I recommend to read radicals overview first.

 

 

Pure radicals are Kanji building blocks. They never appear as Kanji by themselves but as part of one. Their classification was created to simplify the search of Kanji in dictionaries. But sometimes they do have a meaning by themselves. For example the radical 艹 (grass) often appearing in Kanji connected to plants like: 花 - flower, 草 - grass, 茶 - tea.

As it turns out, the list of useful (and important) pure radicals is very small:

Radical                Position:          Examples
⻌ (road)                                  巡 通
艹 (grass)                                 共 花 草 茶 落 幕
阝 (hill)                                    阪 陳
阝 (town)                                 那 邦 郎 部 郭 都 

厂 (cliff)                                   反 厄 灰
广 (doted cliff)                         序 店 府
疒 (sickness)                            病 症 痛 癖
囗 (box)                                   四 回
亠 (lid)                                     六 玄 市 夜 京
冖 (cover)                                冞 冨 冚 冗

宀 (roof)                                    字 家

儿 (human legs)                        児 兄 四 見

 

 

 Tips:

•  Be careful with 阝. It's implication changes with its' positioning. 
• Don't confuse the 囗 (box) radical with 口 (mouth) Kanji. A simple way to distinguish between them is to remember that,  囗 (box) always encloses some component in the middle while 口 (mouth) never does that (it's empty inside).

The full list of radicals.

Radicals overview

It's the forth post about Kanji and now we are getting practical. My goal is to learn 2,136 Jōyō Kanji. As I said before, it's a lot better than 6,355 Kanji, learned for Kanji Kentei, but still, how do I get to learn all of them as effectively as possible? Well, here come the radicals for my help.

Radicals (bushu) are the basic components of Kanji. They are the Lego blocks for Kanji construction. Like most of the things related to Japanese writing system, the Chinese are to blame. The Japanese radicals derived from the Chinese radicals. The Chinese created the radicals as a standard to organize their dictionaries and mace some order in all their enormous number of characters. 
At first there were 540 radicals (Han era) in China. But after the year 1615 they have been revised to 214 radicals and named after the era name - Kengxi radicals. They are used in China till today.
When the Japanese adopted the radicals? Who knows. What's important is that there are only 214 of them!

The better news are, that some of the radicals are Kanji by themselves. That's saving some time with the Kanji later. That is, there are two types of radicals:

• Pure radicals - frequent components in Kanji, but cannot be seen by themselves. Their names meaningless and can vary from dictionary to dictionary, so don't waste your time memorizing them. Remember only the shape.
• Radicals represented by Kanji - Kanji which also participating as radical in other Kanji. It's important to understand that while Kanji as Kanji, have meaning, the Kanji as radical can lose it. So don't try to always make sense of the Kanji components. They can help you to remember the meaning, but they also can confuse.

For example:
The two components creating the Kanji meaning "wind" are radicals. The "upside down box" is a pure radical, which means, it cannot be found by itself as Kanji. On the other hand, the "bug" radical, is a stand alone Kanji with the meaning "bug". (How on Earth the bug is connected to the wind? It isn't. It's just a shape.)

And now for the best news. there is no need to memorize all the radicals in one go. Some of the radicals appearing more frequently then others, thus more appealing to memorize first.

It's important to understand, that the radicals are here to help and simplify the memorization of the Kanji, and don't stand as a goal on there own. Therefore, no need to run and learn every radical by heart before you start learning the Kanji. Learn the frequent ones, and add the others as they come.

Lastly, I want to introduce my view of the radicals and the learning process of Kanji.
I want to try and take a different approach than most. I'll take the two types of radicals and divide them as follows:

• Pure radicals - containing radicals by frequency of appearance and not necessarily all the 214 of them.
• Kanji radicals - the Kanji and their variations as radicals.

The reason for my choice of studding can be explained with the Kanji for time  (時).  In the dictionaries you'll find that its radicals are: sun (日), earth (土) and measurement (寸). But I think it's better to view it as: sun (日), temple (寺). But 寺 is not considered as radical. It confused me the first time I saw it. If 寺 is a Kanji and appearing in other Kanji, why not to call it a radical? Furthermore, it appears as a component at least in 13 Kanji, while the official radical 龠 sappers only in 3 and the radical 鼎 appears as component in no Kanji. That's why I'll try to bend the system a little.

Basic components

It's the third post about Kanji. The first two are talking about Kanji origins and ways of learning. They can be found here and here.

I'm a big fan of structured learning. It's a term I'm using to describe learning things while breaking them into logical components until they are basic undividable pieces. When you start learning music, you start with the notes. When you start learning math, you start with the numbers. When you start learning Kanji, the first step is to learn basic strokes.

But why should we learn the types of strokes? We are not calligraphy painters. Well, yes. You are probably right, but the bigger understanding you'll have, the easier it will be to learn Kanji. The type of strokes in particularly, will help you memorize the right order of writing a Kanji.

Now lets start with the basics. To not overwhelm everyone and to keep going forward, I'll introduce 8 (+1) common strokes. They appear most frequently in Kanji and conveyed in one character which meaning is "forever" (yong - in Chinese). This character is used to demonstrate the "Eight principals of Yong" - explaining the way of writing eight common characters:

－ A dot, filled from the top, to the bottom.
－ A horizontal, filled from left to right.
－ A vertical-falling.
－ An ending to another stroke, is a sharp change of direction either down (after a ) or left (after a ).
－ A flick up and rightwards.
－  Follows a concave path on the left or on the right.
－ A falling leftwards (with a slight curve).
－ A falling rightwards (with an emphasis at the end of the stroke).
(+ － added to the 永's strokes. It's a concave falling right, always ended by a .

There is no need to memorize the names of the strokes, but it will be handy if you'll be able to recognize them in Kanji. If you are familiar with the stroke order principals, you'll easily follow the red numbers on the diagram and will be able to imagine the pen (or brash) writing this character.
If you feel enthusiastic enough, you can learn all the possible strokes here.

More about Kanji

This post is indirect continuation of Kanji overview, and I recommend you to read it first.
The purpose of this post is to dive deeper into the understanding of Kanji. It talks about the things you should pay attention to, while studying. It lists the rules which will help you to memories the characters. And it summaries all the information and tools you need to succeed.

Recognition

The first step in understanding Kanji, is to look at its' origin. The Kanji came to Japan from China, but they have longer history than that. In the proses of developing Chinese script, the image of an object was drown as a pictogram, simplifying the object. Later in history, the pictogram morphed (depending on the period). The first standardization was the seal script, but this script was not the only one existing at that time. The clerical script coexisted and developed in parallel with the seal script. It was the one to be used as a base for the regular or Traditional Chinese script. It happened around 151-230 AD. This script was partly adopted into the Japanese language in 794-1185. After 1946 some of the Kanji were simplified in Japan.
Looking at the origin of the Kanji, can help to memories its' shape and meaning.

Components:
It's important to understand that Kanji are more than just logograms. They are constructed from limited number of components and therefore can be leaned in structured way. Trust me, it's easier to learn characters while braking them into components, rather than trying to absorb each one as a stand alone picture.
For example:

The Kanji for "spring" contains parts: three (in red), person (in blue), day (in yellow). 

You can even search the online dictionaries by the components contained in specific Kanji.

It will be useful to know, that each Kanji occupy the same space as the other, no matter its' complexion. Thus if the Kanji composed of more than one element, its' components will be squashed together to fit the imaginary box intended for it. Therefore some of the components can change shape or lose some of the strokes.

For example:

目　＋　⼉　＝　見

言　＋　売　＝　読

Also the Kanji components have a strict placement relative to each other:
The component can be at left, right, top, bottom, northwest, southwest or enclosure.

Writing


Every single Kanji has its' own stroke order. The impotence of the order not immediately clear for new learners of Kanji, but lets forget about computer documents typing. Once you pick a pen, every human has its' own handwriting. And while you write complex characters in a quick pace, your strokes smear. If everyone picks his own order, the smears will differ from person to person and the recognition of the written character will be more difficult.
For example the same Kanji of mountain:

To know the right stroke order of every Kanji, you can use the online dictionaries.

Order:
Also there are some guidelines that will help you to grasp the general concept: If you imagine the Kanji in a box, so the most general rule will be to write it from the upper-left corner to the bottom-right corner of the box. But it's a little vague, here some more rules to help with the mission:

Top to bottom, left to right:

Horizontal before vertical:

Left vertical before enclosing:

Enclosing before contents:

Diagonals right-to-left before left-to-right:

Center before the both sides:

Character spacing strokes last:

Bottom encloser last:

Dots and minor strikes last:

Components:

Remember the components I have mentioned above? They are also very useful in writing. Every component is written on the same order, no matter in which Kanji it appears. 

Lets return to the "spring" character. Now, we know that the preferred order is from left to right, thus the component we will start wit is 三 (three). After we finish it we will follow the rule of writing from top to bottom. Next we will write 人 (person), and finish with 日 (day). Of cores if we write these three components as Kanji by themselves, they will be written in the same order, and that is why important to know the writing order of each component.

 

Reading & Usage

Almost every Kanji has two types of readings.

• On reading - coming from Chinese pronunciation of the Kanji.
• Kun reading - coming from the sound of the meaning in Japanese.

For example:
The character 水 meaning "water". The Kun reading for it is "mizu", meaning water in Japanese. The On reading for it, is "sui", used in the word for Wednesday "suiyoubi"(水曜日).

Reasons for multiple On readings:
In each type of reading can be multiple readings.
The reason for multiple On readings is the gradual arriving of Kanji to Japan. In different time periods, the same Kanji had different reading in China. When these readings came to Japan, the Japanese decided to keep all the readings. The periods were:

Go-on reading (4-6th  century)

Kan-on reading (7-9th  century)

Too-on reading  (1185-1573)

For example:

The character bright: 明 On readings are みょう(From Go-on), めい(From Kan-on), みん(From Too-on).

Most of the On readings today are from Kan-on reading, therefore the name: Kanji.

Nowadays only some of the dictionaries make the distinction between the different types of On readings. And to say the truth, this piece of information is brought up in this post only to cover all the possible questions and misunderstandings.

Reason for multiple Kun readings:
The reason for multiple Kun readings is the different pronunciation in different regions of Japan for the same meaning. Think about it like UK and US English. One say cab while the other say taxi and both referring to the same type of car service.

When read On or Kun:
Some of the readings frequently used and some are not. When to use and how to read this or that character is the most hard ting about Kanji (in my opinion). When you encounter a Kanji in a text, how would you know which of the readings to choose from? There is no easy way around it. You must know the word to read it right. It's just like in English with the combination "th". The words "teeth", "that", "Thailand" have "th" in them, but in every word we read it differently. So you have to learn the words by hart, but there are some guidelines to guess the reading:
On readings used:

• In compound words formed from multiple Kanji.
• When the Kanji is followed by する (suru).

Kun readings used:

• When you see a Kanji character on its own.
• When it followed by hiragana characters (not する)

Hints in Kanji

Now it's mostly voodoo, but it works for many cases and I had to mention it. 

Many times the components of the Kanji can hint for the meaning or the pronunciation.

For example the Kanji 語 (language, speech, word), and it consists of 言 (say), 五 (five), 口 (mouth). Well, the meaning is hinted by 言 while also appearing in Kanji like: 話 (to talk), 読 (to read), 詠 (song). and by 口 ironically appearing in 言. 

But what about the 五 part? One of the pronunciations of this Kanji is ご (go) like one of the pronunciations of 語. Is it a reading hint or a coincidence?  

While many times a pat of Kanji hinting on meaning, I'm not sure about the pronunciation staff. I'll have to check it 

That's it for now. I hope this post answered at least some of your questions about Kanji.
If you have any comments or incites, pleas share them with me.

Kanji overview

Well, here we are. The true reason this blog was opened.
The main difference between Japanese writing system and other languages writing system are the Chinese characters named 漢字 (かんじ) Kanji. To learn them, we have to find a different approach, as there are too many of them to remember one by one.

Origin
First of all I want to introduce the origin of Kanji.
The meaning of Kanji is literally "Chinese characters" where 漢 (かん) kan is China and 字(じ) ji is character.
Before the year 800, the Japanese had no writing system and all the diplomatic texts were written and read in Chinese. Later, the Japanese restructured the Chinese text in accordance with Japanese grammar, but capt writing the kanji. Later, the Katahana and Hiragana were derived from the Kanji to simplify the writing but the kanji didn't disappear from Japanese pages. Now the kanji used to disambiguate the language. While the Japanese has many homonyms  (words that sound similar but have different meanings), the kanji helps clarify the meaning.

How many?
It's a tricky question which doesn't have a concrete answer. The Japanese dictionary Dai Kan-Wa Jiten consists 49,964 Kanji characters. In Zhonghua Zihai - the largest Chinese dictionary consisting 85,568 characters. And even that one is not full. BUT! Don't run away in screams. No one knows all the characters and no one will expect you to know them all. So, what is expected from Japanese native speakers? The Kenji Kentei - the Japan Kanji aptitude test. It has 12 levels (10 through 3, pre-2, 2, pre-1, 1) while the 1 level is the hardest and while taking it, you are expected to know 6,355 Kanji. While it's better than 85,000, it still a little intimidating. The truth is, that even the native speakers rarely pass the level 1. Only 1.5% of the ones taking it, passing. I think this goal is far higher than I should aim for. That's why I stop my calculation on 2,136 characters leaned by Japanese children through the school years and should be known for the level 2 of the exam.

Where to start?
Now that the final goal is set, what is the right order of learning the characters? There are many ways to do it:

• Learn by stroke count.
• Learn by frequency of appearance.
• Learn by concept.
• Learning by JLPT - Japanese language proficiency test, requirements for Kanji.
• Learning by Japanese school program.

Personally, I prefer the last method. Children in Japan start learning Kanji from the first grade. And they learn in some logical order (I assume). This list of Kanji, known as Joyo Kanji, consists of:

• 1,006 Kanji taught in primary school
• 1,130 Kanji taught in secondary school

One at a time
To say that you know the character, you should learn the following:

• Visual - Recognize the kanji when seeing it
• Writing - Know the way of writing the kanji. each kanji has it's own stroke order, thus should be practised. 
• Reading - Knowledge of all the readings for each kanji. The readings divided into two main categories:
• On'yomi: it's a sound based reading - In this case we pronounce the kanji as it was pronounced in Chinese.
• Kun'yomi: it's a meaning based reading - The meaning of the kanji attached to the sound in Japanese. In this case we pronounce the kanji in Japanese.
• Usage - Knowledge of when to use the kanji in the language and which reading to apply.

 The only thing that left, is to wish you good luck.