Vous êtes sur la page 1sur 12

HOW TO FIND THE KANJI RADICALFINDING THE CORE OF

KANJI
NOVEMBER 18, 2014 2416 WORDS WRITTEN BY KRISTEN DEXTER ART BY AYA FRANCISCO
Radicals are the building blocks of kanji, the once Chinese characters that are used as one of the three
writing systems in Japan today. While you may be familiar with the term "radical" many people don't
really know what they are or how to find the radical within a kanji that determines its arrangement and
organization.
If you're a WaniKani user, you need to know that these aren't the same types of radicals that you're
learning. This is the official (read: traditional) system used in dictionaries and taught in Japanese schools.
While WaniKani teaches you useful mnemonics to piece together and understand what kanji are made of,
finding the radical is a different process.
Before we dive in, you should already be familiar with kanji stroke order. Being able to recognize the
number of strokes in a kanji is essential for what we're about to go over. If you ever want to use a
traditional or electronic dictionary, have proper Japanese handwriting, and/or

practice shodo (calligraphy), proper stroke order is a must.

WHAT IS A KANJI RADICAL?

Radicals, known in Japanese as bushu , are a way to classify characters in order to find them in a
list or collection. Sometimes they can help you figure out the meaning of the kanji, but most of the time
they're just there to help you find out where they are. Radicals have their own nicknames in Japanese to
help understand them, but even most Japanese people can't name them all from memory.

THE KANGXI RADICALS

First, let's look at how the radicals are categorized. The Kangxi radical system is a set of 214 radicals that
are used to classify all of the kanji used in Japanese. Many Japanese character dictionaries are arranged

by this system, instead of the Japanese Syllabary Order (gojuuonjun ), also known as
AIUEO Order (

), which some beginner kanji dictionaries and vocabulary dictionaries

use.
The Kangxi name comes from the original Chinese dictionary that standardized the system of

classification back at the beginning of the 18th century, the Kangxi Dictionary (koukijiten ).
Though the idea of arranging characters by their 214 unique radicals was initially introduced a century
earlier in the Zihui Dictionary (), it wasn't until the Kangxi Dictionary that the system became widely
accepted. The Zihui Dictionary was also the first to sort characters by their stroke order.

Radicals are generally broken up into categories based on that number of strokes. For instance, the lowest
number of strokes a radical can have is one, and there are six different unique radicals that can have one
stroke. The highest number of strokes a radical can have is seventeen, and there is only one, the
radical (flute).

WHY ARE RADICALS IMPORTANT?


You may be wondering why learning about the Kangxi radicals and how to find the radical is important.
While the Kangxi radical system isn't the only existing list of radicals, it is widely used by almost all
Japanese English Character Dictionaries, including online dictionaries.
If you're trying to look up a character and you don't know the meaning or pronunciation, and you don't
have electronic dictionaries or smartphones to draw what you see, the last option you have is to find the
radical(s) and look it up that way.
Understanding and identifying radicals is a great skill to have and the more you practice, the more
familiar you get with them, the easier looking up new kanji gets.

NOT EVERYTHING IS A RADICAL!


One of the misconceptions I've run into is people thinking that all radicals are kanji in themselves. While
there are plenty of characters where the radical is also a kanji, it isn't universally true. It's like saying that
all letters are words because it works for the letter "I". However, radicals like may be found in kanji
like (bad luck) and (exit), but isn't a character, it's just a radical.
While there seem to be arguments online about this, not every part of a character is a radical either. At
least, not in the official sense. Yes, there are kanji made up of two or more radicals like (cedar) which is
made up of the radicals and (We'll go over how to determine which one is the radical it's classified
under a little later on) but not everything is so cut and dry. For example, in the kanji (summit) the
portion on the left is not a radical. The only radical here is . Have another example: In the
kanji (learning) that top part? Not a radical. The only radical here is . How can I say they aren't
radicals? Well they aren't listed within the 214. So while, yes, those other pieces also make up the
character, they aren't officially radicals. (Remember that this is for classification purposes those extra
bits are still important to the kanji, just not if you're trying to find out where they are in a list.)

Radicals were not made up to help you learn Japanese. If they were, there would probably be enough to
cover all the parts that make up a character. Again, they're the pieces of the kanji that Chinese scholars
recognized and used to help with categorization. Don't sit down and memorize all 214 radicals and expect
to know Japanese. The official radicals and their nicknames aren't meant to help you figure out what a
kanji means. What a shame.

MODIFIED RADICALS
Radicals also don't always look the same in every situation. There are radicals that take different forms if
you put them on top, to the left, or on the bottom portion of a character. Here are all the radicals that have
variations:
Radical

Variant(s)

Radical

Variant(s)

Radical

Variant(s)

Some of them are fairly simple and don't change very drastically, but as you can see there are some that do.
It's easy to get tripped up looking for a radical and realizing later that you were trying to look up at variant
the whole time.

THE SEVEN RADICAL LOCATIONS


There are seven different locations where you can find the radical of a character. If the radical uses a
variation, the main version is next to it in parentheses.
Image

Location

Examples

Hen Left Side

() in ,() in ,() in

Tsukuri Right Side

() in , in , in

Kanmuri Top

() in , in in , in

Ashi Bottom

in , () in , in

Tare Northwest

in , in , in

Ny Southwest

() in , in , in

Kamae - Enclosure

in , in , in

There are also a few kamae variants:

THE TWELVE STEPS TO FINDING THE RADICAL

Now that you know where the radicals can be, the hard part is in finding which radical is the radical, or
rather, the radical it will be categorized under. Luckily, there are twelve almost easy steps to finding the
radical. They are as follows:
1. Is the whole character the radical?
The most obvious, and yet sometimes the most difficult to find, are the ones that are radicals themselves.
For example, , , , and are all kanji where the whole thing is the radical.
2. Does it only have one radical?
Sometimes there is only one radical in the character. only has the radical , and only has the
radical .
3. Is there an enclosure?
If you find a character that has a radical covering 2 4 sides, that's usually the radical. In the radical
is , in the radical is , in the radical is .
4. Is there an obvious radical on the left?
The left radical should have nothing above or below it, and should not be intersecting with anything on the
right. In the radical is , in the radical is . Note that the parts of the characters that are on the
right side are not radicals.
5. What about on the right?
This is the same as the last one, but on the opposite side. In the radical is , and in the radical is .
6. How about on top?
Many top radicals look like slanted roofs. In the radical is , and in the radical is .
7. Okay, try the bottom?

These can be tricky, but remember if there are two or more parts on top, the radical might be on the
bottom. In the radical is , and in the radical is .
Now is the point where you only continue if you tried all of the other steps and still couldn't find the
radical.
8. Northwest?
If we look at the character there is a lot going on. The left and right sides are not radicals by themselves.
So we look northwest, or top left, first, and see that the radical is .
9. Northeast?
So there was nothing in the northwest, how about northeast, or top right? In the only part that is a
radical is .
10. Southeast?
You can't find anything at the top, so move down from where you were. In we once again find the
radical to be .
11. Southwest?
Last weird direction. Move back to the bottom left and sometimes the radical will be there. Look at this
character all of these corners are radicals! So you take the bottom left, .
Here, have an easier one, is not an enclosure radical because that top part isn't a radical at all. is the
radical.
12. Okay, I give up, is it on the inside?
You don't have to wait until you've gone through all of the other steps to see these. In the radical is ,
in the radical is , and in the radical is .

Remember if there are two radicals in the same position, always go with the one with the higher number
of strokes. Also, make sure the part you're picking is actually one of the 214 Kangxi radicals. Sometimes
the first thing you pick might look like it's right because of its position, but if it isn't one of the 214, then
it's technicallynot a radical, and you won't be able to find it because the section you're looking for doesn't
exist!
Nelson's method is not the only way you can find the radical, in fact many character dictionaries
have their own methods. Sometimes there are modifications made in order to fit the way the dictionary
organizes it's radicals, so make sure when you're using a new one to take a look at their guide just in case
there are any differences.

MISSING RADICALS
Unfortunately (and fortunately for us language learners), thanks to kanji simplification by the Japanese
government, some kanji lost their radicals. The solution was to give them new radicals, but that doesn't
make them any easier to find.
Let's look at two examples:
Traditional Form

Traditional Radical

Simplified Form

New Radic

You can see why they had to change the categorization of these kanji. The problem is when you're trying to
find the simplified version of a character and all you have is the traditional version to go by. Luckily, if you
have a good dictionary you can still look up the old character and it will reference the newer, simplified
version.

THE MOST COMMON RADICALS


The following is a list of some of the most frequently used radicals out of the 214. It can be helpful to
become familiar with at least this list and their variants, but you really don't have to memorize them by
any means. I've also included their English nicknames, but they aren't official, just helpful when trying to
understand what you're looking at.

Radical

Reading

Nickname
one

rod, line

dot

slash, kana no

lid

(,)

man

eight

()

sword, knife

cross, ten

cliff

mouth

box, enclosure

earth

woman

roof, kana u

(, )

little, small

flag, corpse

mountain

cloth, turban

dotted cliff

bow

going man, step

(,)

heart

(,)

hand

()

folding chair, rap

sun

Radical

Reading

Nickname
tree

(,)

water

()

fire

(, )

cow

()

dog

(, , )

jewel, jade

rice field, field

sick, sickness

dish

eye

stone

()

showing, spirit

two branch tree, grain

stand, standing

()

bamboo

rice

()

thread, silk

ear

()

meat

ship, boat

()

grass

bug, insect

()

clothes, clothing

see, seeing

()

speech, speaking

small shell

Radical

Reading

()

Nickname
foot

cart, car

(,,)

road, walk

(,,)

city, right village

()

metal, gold

gate

()

left village, mound

old bird, short tailed bird

rain

big shell, leaf

()

eat, food

horse

fish

bird

Now that you know all about radicals, why don't you put your new knowledge to the test in a kanji
dictionary? Good luck!

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi