| Welcome to Fun and Easy Chinese by ChineseClass101.com! |
| 嗨大家好，我是李殷如. (Hài dàjiā hǎo, Wǒ shì Lǐ Yīnrú.) |
| Hi everyone. I’m Yinru Li. |
| Learning Chinese characters, 汉字 (Hànzì), can be less intimidating if you break each character down and study their components, especially the radicals. |
| In this lesson, you’ll be introduced to ten common radicals along with examples characters of those radicals. |
| [Common misconception: component = radical] |
| Before we start with the top 10 radicals, I'd like to explain the difference between a component and a radical in Chinese characters. |
| Components and radicals are not the same. |
| Radicals, in Chinese, 部首 (bùshǒu), are components that are used as an index in dictionaries. |
| Components, in Chinese 偏旁 (piānpáng) are the broken-down parts of Chinese characters. |
| So remember this: "A radical is always a component, a component is not necessarily a radical. " |
| 部首是偏旁，偏旁不一定是部首。Bùshǒu shì piānpáng, piānpáng bù yīdìng shì bùshǒu. |
| A lot of radicals indicate the meaning of a character. That's why it's important to know some of the most common radicals. |
| The first radical is 木 (mù). It's called 木字旁 (mù zì páng). |
| It comes from 汉字 (Hànzì) 木, meaning "wood." 木 (mù). [slow] 木. |
| When used as a radical, the character is narrowed down a bit, especially the right stroke, like this |
| (show on whiteboard) |
| It often appears on the left side of a character. |
| When we put two 木 (mù) together, they become a new character. |
| 林 (lín) means "woods." [slow] 林. |
| Note the 木 on the left side is the radical, with a shorter right stroke. |
| When we put three 木 together like this, they become the character 森 (sēn), meaning "forest." [slow] 森. Now the radical, 木, is on top. |
| When we put 森 and 林 together, they become a compound word that also means "forest." 森林 (sēnlín). [slow] 森林. |
| The character 桥 (qiáo) means "bridge." The left side is the radical 木, while the right side, 乔 (qiáo), indicates the pronunciation. This character is also pronounced as qiáo. |
| This is often the case for many characters. |
| The radical indicates the meaning, and the other component indicates the sound. Sometimes it's the exact same pronunciation as the character, and sometimes it's close to the pronunciation. |
| The next radical 艹 is called 草字头 (cǎo zì tóu). |
| Normally it's not used as an individual character. You'll often see it appear on the top part of characters. |
| This radical comes from the character 草 (cǎo), which means "grass." |
| Therefore, any character with this radical is associated with herbs or plants. |
| For example, 花 (huā) means "flower." [slow] 花. |
| 茶 (chá), "tea," also includes the radical 艹, because tea is a kind of herb. [slow] 茶. |
| Same thing with the word 药 (yào), which means "medicine." [slow] 药. |
| Traditionally, herbs are used as medicines in China. As a matter of fact, herbal medicine is still widely used today in China. |
| Herbal medicine in Chinese is called 中药 (zhōngyào). 中 represents 中国 (Zhōngguó), or "China." 中药 together refers to "traditional Chinese medicine." [slow] 中药 |
| The next radical 氵is called 三点水 (sān diǎn shuǐ). |
| It comes from the character 水 (shuǐ), meaning "water," so characters with 三点水 (sān diǎn shuǐ) usually have something to do with water. |
| For example, 江 (jiāng), meaning "river," in particular, a "big river." [slow] 江. |
| 长江 (Chángjiāng) literally means "long river," but it's the name of a major river that runs through China. In English, it’s translated to "Yangtze river." [slow] 长江. |
| There’s also 海 hǎi, meaning "ocean" or "sea." [slow] 海. |
| 大海 (dàhǎi), literally "big sea," is an everyday word for "ocean." [slow] 大海. |
| Here’s another interesting 汉字 with the radical 氵. 泪 (lèi). |
| We know the left side means water, and the right side, 目 (mù), is the character for "eye." Water in the eyes is 泪 (lèi), meaning "tear." [slow] 泪. |
| 汗 (hàn) is made in a similar way. The left side is water, and the right side, 干 (gàn), means "to do" or "physical work." The water that comes from doing physical work is…"sweat." [slow] 汗. |
| Let’s move on to this radical, 金字旁 (jīn zì páng), which originates from 汉字 "金" (jīn), meaning "gold" or "metal." Characters with this radical are likely to be made of metal. |
| Take the word 钱 (qián), for example. It means "money." In ancient times, metals such as copper and gold were used as currency, which explains why 钱 has the radical for metal. [slow] 钱. |
| 针 (zhēn), with the right component looking like two needles, means "needle." [slow] 针. |
| 钟 (zhōng) means "clock." The right component, 中 (zhōng), meaning "middle," is a sound indicator for the character. [slow] 钟. |
| Let's continue with the radical, 口 (kǒu), which can also be a stand-alone character, meaning "mouth" or "opening." |
| When used as a radical, it sometimes appears on the left side of a character. Other times it appears on the top or bottom of a character. |
| As you may have guessed, characters with this radical often have something to do with the mouth. |
| For example, 吃 (chī) means "to eat." [slow] 吃. |
| Now let’s make a phrase with 吃 (chī). How about 吃草 (chī cǎo)？We learned earlier in this lesson that 草 (cǎo) means "grass," so 吃草 is "to eat grass." |
| 牛 (niú) means "cow," so 牛吃草 (niú chī cǎo) is "cows eat grass." [slow] 牛吃草. |
| 吹 (chuī) means "to blow," which is also an action that involves using your mouth. |
| When 吹, "to blow," and 牛, "cow," are combined as a compound word, "to blow a cow," it actually means "to brag or boast." [slow] 吹牛 (chuīniú). |
| This character 名 (míng) has the radical, 口 (kǒu), at the bottom. It means "name." [slow] 名. |
| The top part, 夕(xī), means "sunset" or "dusk." When it’s getting dark, you call out your children’s names so they come back home. That’s how this character, 名, "name" was made. Isn’t this character interesting and easy to remember? |
| In everyday language, we often use the compound word, 名字 (míngzi) to refer to one's name. |
| [SLOW] 名字 (míngzi) |
| 名字 (míngzi) |
| Another interesting 汉字 with the radical 口 (kǒu), although this time at the top of the character, is 呆 (dāi). |
| The bottom part, 木 (mù), we know means "wood." In Chinese culture, the word 木 has a connotation of being "slow-reacting" and "dumb." |
| When your mouth is open and your body is frozen like a log, you look "not smart" or "dumb." [slow] 呆. |
| [Review and Outro] |
| In this lesson, we learned five commonly used radicals that indicate |
| wood － 木字旁 (mù zì páng), |
| herbs and plants － 草字头 (cǎo zì tóu), |
| water －三点水(sān diǎn shuǐ), |
| gold or metal － 金字旁 (jīn zì páng), |
| and mouth －口字旁 (kǒu zì páng). |
| In the next lesson, we’ll learn five more radicals to make your Hanzi learning easier. |
| See you then! Thanks for watching. 再见！ |
Comments
Hide