Chinese radicals are like Lego bricks that snap together to make new characters.
– Got Characters
Radicals, or Classifiers, are graphical components of Chinese characters listed under traditional Chinese characters in the Chinese dictionary. Admittedly, I don’t completely understand what that means because my knowledge of radicals prior to this article came from Wikipedia.
There are three major advantages to learning Chinese radicals:
1. It’s easier.
More than one third of radicals can be accompanied by pictographs which makes it easier to remember. You can use Got Character’s ‘A Radical View‘ to easily learn the radicals.
2. Stroke of genius.
Almost half of radicals require fewer than five strokes, which makes a lot of characters easier to write than even English letters!
3. Learn organically.
Radicals are the roots of all Chinese characters. It’s important to learn the radicals in the largest semantic fields as you will see them frequently throughout your studies.
Less Pain, More Gain | Got Characters
