Chinese For Dummies (11 page)

The Chinese Radical: A Few Clues to a Character's Meaning

What a radical idea! Two hundred and fourteen radical ideas, in fact.

The Chinese written language contains a total of 214
radicals
— parts of the character that can help identify what it may signify. For example, if you see two or three dots on the left-hand side of the character, you know the word is something connected to water. Here are some characters with the water radical appearing on the left-hand side:

冰
bīng
(beeng) (
ice
)

冲
chōng
(choong) (
to pour boiling water on something/to rinse or flush
)

汗
hàn
(hahn) (
sweat
)

æ²³
hé
(huh) (
river
)

湖
hú
(hoo) (
lake
)

Another example: The radical meaning
wood
—
木
mù
(moo) — originally represented the shape of a tree with branches and roots). Here are some characters with the wood radical in them (also on the left-hand side):

板
bǎn
(bahn) (
board/plank
)

林
lín
(leen) (
forest
)

树
(
樹
)
shù
(shoo) (
tree
)

Sometimes you find the radical at the top of the character rather than on the left-hand side. The radical meaning
rain
—
雨
yú
(
yew
) — is one such character. Look for the rain radical at the top these characters. (Hint: It looks slightly squished compared to the actual character for rain by itself.)

雹
bǎo
(baow) (
hail
)

雷
léi
(lay) (
thunder
)

露
lù
(loo) (
dew
)

One of the most complicated radicals (number 214, to be precise) is the one that means
nose:
é¼»
bí
(bee). It's so complicated to write, in fact, that only one other character in the whole Chinese language uses it:
é¼¾
hān
(hahn) (
to snore
).

Following the Rules of Stroke Order

If you want to study
shū fǎ
书法
(
書法
) (shoo-fah) (
calligraphy
) with a traditional Chinese
máo bǐ
毛笔
(
毛筆
) (maow-bee) (
writing brush
), or even just learn how to write Chinese characters with a plain old ballpoint pen, you need to know which stroke goes before the next. This progression is known as
bǐ shùn
笔顺
(
筆順
) (bee shwun) (
stroke order
).

All those complicated-looking Chinese characters are actually created by several individual strokes of the Chinese writing brush.
Bǐ shùn
follows nine (count 'em) rules, which I lay out in the following sections.

Nowadays you don't have to master the art of Chinese calligraphy to write beautiful characters. All you have to do is press a key on a computer, and the character magically appears.

Rule 1

The first rule of thumb is that you write the character by starting with the topmost stroke.

For example, among the first characters students usually learn is the number
one,
which is written with a single horizontal line:
一
. Because this character is pretty easy and has only one stroke, it's written from left to right.

The character for
two
has two strokes:
二
. Both strokes are written from left to right; the top stroke is written first, following the top-to-bottom rule. The character for
three
has three strokes (
三
)and follows the same stroke-making pattern.

In the case of more complicated characters (for example, those with radicals that appear on the left-hand side), the radical on the left is written first, followed by the rest of the character. For example, to write the character meaning
tree
—
树
(
樹
)
shù
(shoo) — you first write the radical on the left (
木
) before adding the rest of the character to the right of the radical. To write the character meaning
thunder
—
雷
léi
(lay) — you have to write the radical that appears on top (
雨
) first before writing the rest of the character underneath it.

Rules 2 through 9

Don't worry; the remaining rules require a lot less explanation than rule 1 does:

Rule 2:
Write horizontal strokes before vertical strokes. For example, the character meaning
ten
(
十
) is composed of two strokes, but the first one you write is the one appearing horizontally:
一
. The vertical stroke downward is written after that.

Rule 3:
Write strokes that have to pass through the rest of the character last. Vertical strokes that pass through many other strokes are written after the strokes they pass through (like in the second character for the city of
Tiānjīn:
天津
[tyan-jeen]), and horizontal strokes that pass through all sorts of other strokes are written last (like in the character meaning
boat:
舟
zhōu
[joe]).

Rule 4:
Create
diagonal strokes that go from right to left before writing the diagonal strokes that go from left to right. You write the character meaning
culture
—
文
wén
(wuhn) — with four separate strokes: First comes the dot on top, then the horizontal line underneath it, then the diagonal stroke that goes from right to left, and finally the diagonal stroke that goes from left to right.

Rule 5:
In characters that are vertically symmetrical, create the center components before those on the left or the right. Then write the portion of the character appearing on the left before the one appearing on the right. An example of such a character is the one meaning
to take charge of:
承
chéng
(chuhng).

Rule 6:
Write
the portion of the character that's an outside enclosure before the inside portion, such as in the word for
sun:
日
rì
(
ir
). Some characters with such enclosures don't have bottom portions, such as with the character for
moon:
月
yuè
(yweh).