Studying the Japanese Radicals makes learning kanji easier. Breaking kanji into radicala makes them simpler to remember over having to remember each individual stroke.
The kanji for 'to speak' is made up of two radicals. Sometimes the meaning of the radicals will help you understand the Japanese meaning, as it does in this kanji.I'm k here to add u.
Sometimes the meaning of the radicals doesn't help to understand the Japanese.The words 'heart', 'again' and 'earth' don't equal 'mystery'. Still, the three radicals are easier to remember than their individual strokes.o add u.
This is the kanji for 'time'. the measurement of the sun over the earth does suggest 'time'..
No, I am not an expert!
Let me say right from the beginning that I do not claim to be an expert in Japanese or in kanji. I am simply a student of Japanese, trying to learn as best I can, looking for ways to improve my understanding. Learning the Japanese radicals has helped me immensely in remembering which elements make up a certain kanji. I hope these pages will help others as well.
Learning Japanese Kanji Radicals
Even though I have studied kanji for years and years, many times I would still forget exactly how to write them. I would contantly say to myself, I know that kanji has the tree on this side, but what's on the other side? I tried making names for the simple kanji, such as 'tree' for 木 , but since I wasn't keeping track of the names that I gave them, I soon found myself making two sets of names for the same one or giving the same name to two different ones, making it even more difficult to remember how to write the kanji.
Looking for a solution, I searched all over the internet to see how other people were studying kanji, but all the advice boiled down to simple memorization. I was already doing that, and not succeeding very well. I then came across one person who advocated learning the 214 Official Japanese Radicals in spite of the fact that the Japanese do not actively study them. Japanese children have the luxury of learning kanji gradually over the course of their 10-14 years in school, so memorization works well. But foreigners need to actively learn the radicals, since we do not have that kind of time to spend learning kanji. By learning the radicals, these elements become our 'alphabet'. Although they make up a rather large alphabet compared to English's 26 letters, they still allow us to see the kanji as small radical parts, much like the letters we use for words, freeing us from having to learn the entire stoke order of each kanji we study.
My next step was to find out exactly what were the 214 Official Japanese Radicals. Well, there is a slight difference between some of the websites you will find on the internet, but on the whole, they are in order from 1 to 214.
When learning these radicals, it is important to give a unique English name to each one, because you will use those words to describe kanji that are made up of several radicals. The kanji for 'sky' 空 would be described in English as; crown, legs, and work. Some people make up little stories, such as "The crown walked to work, looking at the sky," but I found the simpler I made it, the easier it was to remember. Crown, legs, work = sky. That's it. You can change the English names for the radicals to anything you want, but keep those names consistent. If you want Radical # 18 刀 to be 'knife' instead of 'sword', do so. But, make sure you are satisfied with the name before practicing.
Stroke order is important for electronic dictionaries and kanji recognition apps, so you might as well learn it the right way from the beginning. Click on the button to see the pages with the stroke order included.
If you are ready to learn the radicals, you can start by printing the entire 214 radicals from the button on the left or you can go to each of the Radical sections. Each section has a PDF available for printing of that particular page, as well as stroke order and practice sheets. The first practice sheet in each set is in the same order as the study sheet. The other two practice sheets have the radicals mixed up in a different order.