All Chinese characters have a radical or are a radial in itself. There are about
214 radicals and some of them are under debate to be removed.
A radical (from Latin radix, means "root") is a
basic identifiable component of
every Chinese character. A radical is usually meaningful and contains one or
more than one strokes.
Radicals are used in Chinese
dictionaries, Kanji-Japanese dictionaries, and
Hanja-Korean dictionaries to order characters in sets by the number of strokes
they contain. Characters are ordered according to their initial radicals, then
these are subcategorised by their total number of strokes.
The huge number of Chinese characters can be much
more easily memorized if
they are grouped or decomposed into their constituent radicals.
Tips: For more information about Radicals, see the embedded lessons.