Learn what Chinese radicals are
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
Intro |
|---|
| Michael: What are Chinese radicals? |
| Dehua: And why is it important to learn them? |
| Michael: At ChineseClass101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Sasha Lee is not sure how to write one character. She asks her teacher, Lin Li, |
| "How do you write hǎo?" |
| 李萨莎: Hǎo怎么写？ (Hǎo zěnme xiě?) |
| Dialogue |
| 李萨莎: Hǎo怎么写？ (hǎo zěnme xiě?) |
| 李琳: 部首是「女人」的「女」和「孩子」的「子」。 (Bùshǒu shì "nǚrén" de "nǚ" hé "háizi" de "zǐ.") |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| 李萨莎: Hǎo怎么写？ (hǎo zěnme xiě?) |
| Michael: "How do you write Hǎo?" |
| 李琳: 部首是「女人」的「女」和「孩子」的「子」。 (Bùshǒu shì "nǚrén" de "nǚ" hé "háizi" de "zǐ.") |
| Michael: "You write the radicals for "woman" and for "child."" |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: The writing system in China uses the simplified Chinese characters, while the traditional Chinese characters are used in Taiwan. The Chinese characters are known to be challenging for learners, but I have a learning tip for you! The characters can actually be broken down into smaller components, so they're less daunting. These smaller components are called radicals, or |
| Dehua: 部首 (bùshǒu). |
| Michael: You can think of radicals as being the building blocks of the Chinese characters. Every character has a radical, and sometimes the radical itself can be a character on its own. The term "radical" can be used loosely to refer to each element in a character, but you will also find that each character has one key radical, which can also be used for looking up the character in a Chinese dictionary. |
| Michael: Unlike English dictionaries, in which the entries are words, in a fundamental Chinese dictionary, the entries are characters, which is… |
| Dehua: 字 (zì) |
| Michael: so a Chinese dictionary where you can look up characters is called… |
| Dehua: 字典 (zìdiǎn). |
| Michael: By learning radicals, you will not only better understand the character that you have learned, but you will even gain insight on many of the characters that you have yet to study. |
| Michael: Instead of learning individual characters, one at a time, by learning just a few of the most common radicals, you will be able to read and understand several of the most frequently used characters in Chinese. By simply studying character radicals, you'll be able to quickly identify the root of any character that you encounter. This may jog your memory when trying to recall a character that you've previously studied, or, at least, give you a general sense of the meaning or pronunciation of a new word. |
| Michael: For example, let's look at the character… |
| Dehua: 时 (shí), |
| Michael: By looking at the writing, we can see that it has left–right structure and contains two components. The radical for this character is… |
| Dehua: 日 (rì), |
| Michael: which means "sun," "day," or "time." Using this information, we can deduce that the meaning of the character is related to "time." |
| Michael: Let's see another example. Let's look at the character… |
| Dehua: 推 (tuī), |
| Michael: meaning "to push." You can see it on the left side of the character 扌(shǒu) is the radical, known as… |
| Dehua: 提手旁 (tí shǒu páng). |
| Michael: It originated from the basic character… |
| Dehua: 手 (shǒu), |
| Michael: which means "hand." Therefore, it's not a surprise that the overall meaning of the character involves using the hand "to push." You can find the "hand" radical in many more characters that involve an action using the hands. |
| Michael: As a Chinese language learner, a great place to start is by mastering the most common character radicals. These appear often in the Chinese characters used in texts and everyday life in China. Even if you cannot identify every character in a word or phrase, knowing the radicals will give you a head start. Here are six of the most common character radicals: |
| Michael: First, we have |
| Dehua: 口 (kǒu), |
| Michael: which means "mouth." Next, we have |
| Dehua: 氵/ 三点水 (sān diǎn shuǐ), |
| Michael: meaning "water." The writing actually resembles three drops of water. Third, we have |
| Dehua: 女 (nǚ), |
| Michael: as seen in our lesson dialogue. Tt means "woman" or "female." Following that, we have |
| Dehua: 亻/ 单人旁 (dān rén páng), |
| Michael: which means "person." Fifth, we have |
| Dehua: 扌/ 提手旁 (tí shǒu páng), |
| Michael: which, as we have seen, means "hand." And, lastly, we have |
| Dehua: 忄/ 竖心旁 (shù xīn páng), |
| Michael: which means "heart," and is usually found in characters that involve emotions. |
| Michael: Start with these simple radicals when learning the Chinese characters, and you'll soon build up your vocabulary faster than you thought possible! |
| Practice Section |
| Michael: Let's review the sentences we've heard in this lesson. I'll say the sentence in English, and then I want you to try and reply in Chinese. Dehua will then model the correct answer—listen to her carefully and repeat, with emphasis on your pronunciation. |
| Do you remember how to say "How do you write hǎo?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Dehua: Hǎo怎么写？ (Hǎo zěnme xiě?) |
| Michael: Did you get it right? Listen again and repeat. |
| Dehua: Hǎo怎么写？ (Hǎo zěnme xiě?) |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Dehua: Hǎo怎么写？ (Hǎo zěnme xiě?) |
| Michael: Now for our next sentence. Do you remember how to say "You write the radicals for "woman" and for "child"?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Dehua: 部首是「女人」的「女」和「孩子」的「子」。 (Bùshǒu shì "nǚrén" de "nǚ" hé "háizi" de "zǐ.") |
| Michael: Listen again and repeat. |
| Dehua: 部首是「女人」的「女」和「孩子」的「子」。 (Bùshǒu shì "nǚrén" de "nǚ" hé "háizi" de "zǐ.") |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Dehua: 部首是「女人」的「女」和「孩子」的「子」。 (Bùshǒu shì "nǚrén" de "nǚ" hé "háizi" de "zǐ.") |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: Most characters represent an idea, and therefore contain a wealth of information. The radicals used in these characters give us tremendous clues as to the given meaning behind these characters. By memorizing character as a combination of parts, you can greatly simplify the learning process and thus see the importance of learning each character radical, as well as its meaning. |
| Expansion |
| Michael: Some radicals can be characters on their own. For example, the radical from our lesson dialogue, |
| Dehua: 女 (nǚ), |
| Michael: by itself, means "female." Another example is |
| Dehua: 手 (shǒu). |
| Michael: The meaning of this character is "hand." When written on its own, it occupies the whole space given to an individual character. However, when this character functions as a radical, as in... |
| Dehua: 推 (tuī), |
| Michael: the appearance slightly changes (扌), as it occupies only a portion of the space, about one-third of the size of the character. |
| Michael: There are more examples of radicals that may vary from the original characters such as... |
| Dehua: 亻/ 人 (rén) |
| Michael: meaning "human" or "person," |
| Dehua: 氵/ 水 (shuǐ) |
| Michael: meaning "water," and |
| Dehua: 忄/ 心 (xīn) |
| Michael: meaning "heart." |
| Michael: For more information about radicals, please check out our Chinese Radical Table under free Chinese Resources. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Dehua: 再见！ (zàijiàn!) |
| Michael: See you soon! |
Comments
Hide