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Chinese Research and Bibliographic Methods for Beginners: Radicals & Simplification

Radicals

A Chinese radical (部首. bù shǒu,) a component of a Chinese character, is one of a series of recurring components within characters.

All Chinese characters are made up of one or more radicals. In the traditional Kangxi (康熙) radical system, there are 214 radicals. Most dictionaries are arranged according to this system.

List of Kangxi radicals

Identifying Radicals

Chinese describe characters using the name of a radical and its location within the character. The positions of radicals are so common that there is a very simple way to refer to them. For example, many radicals appearing on the left of characters are denoted by the name of the radical + “character” (字 zì) + "side" (旁 páng).

Examples:

旁:

  • 說 (shuō): 言字旁 (yánzi páng)
  • 便 (biàn): 人字旁 (rénzi páng)
  • 吩 (fēn): 口字旁 (kǒuzi páng)

頭:

  • 蘭 (lán): 草字頭 (cǎozi tóu)
  • 笛 (dí): 竹字頭 (zhúzi tóu)

底:

  • 感 (gǎn): 心字底 (xīnzi dǐ)

Simplification

The government of the People's Republic of China has promoted simplified Chinese characters (simplified Chinese: 简体字; traditional Chinese: 簡體字; Pinyin: Jiǎntǐzì) since 1956, and simplified Chinese characters are officially used in Mainland China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are still used in Hong Kong, Macau, and Republic of China (Taiwan).

简繁体转换

Methods of Simplification

Structural simplification of characters (字型結構簡化 / 字型结构简化)
穀 → 谷   長 → 长   觀 → 观   顯 → 显

Derivation based on simplified character components (簡化字與簡化偏旁之延伸與應用 / 简化字与简化偏旁之延伸与应用)