Chinese Radicals — Complete Reference & Dictionary
Browse all 73 major Kangxi radicals with meanings, pinyin, and example characters. Filter by stroke count or search by meaning. Click any radical to see more detail.
Showing 73 of 73 radicals
What Are Chinese Radicals?
A Chinese radical (部首, bùshǒu) is the semantic or phonetic building block used to classify Chinese characters in dictionaries. The traditional Kangxi radical system organises all ~50,000+ Chinese characters into 214 radical categories.
Why learn radicals?
Recognising radicals dramatically speeds up character learning. When you see 河,海,湖 (river, sea, lake), the water radical 氵tells you they all relate to water.
Semantic radicals
Many radicals indicate meaning. 木 (wood) appears in 树 (tree), 桌 (table), 椅 (chair). Once you know the radical, you can guess a character's meaning field.
Phonetic components
About 85% of characters are phono-semantic: one part suggests meaning, another suggests sound. 青 (qīng) appears in 请,清,情,晴 — all similar in sound.
Dictionary lookup
Traditional Chinese dictionaries are organised by radical. Knowing the radical of an unknown character lets you look it up without knowing its pronunciation.
List of Chinese Radicals — All 214 Kangxi Radicals
The Kangxi Dictionary (康熙字典), published in 1716, established the canonical list of 214 radicals used to classify Chinese characters. This system remains the standard for all major Chinese dictionaries today, including the modern PRC standard and Taiwan's Ministry of Education dictionaries.
The 214 radicals are organised by stroke count — from the simplest one-stroke radicals (一, 丨, 丶) through to complex 17-stroke radicals. Browse the full list above using the stroke count filter, or search by English meaning or pinyin to find any radical instantly.
Chinese Radical Dictionary
This tool functions as a searchable Chinese radical dictionary. Each entry shows the radical character, its Kangxi number, stroke count, pinyin pronunciation, English meaning, and three example characters that contain the radical. Click any radical card to expand its details.
Unlike a full character dictionary, a radical dictionary is focused on the building blocks of the writing system — making it the ideal companion for learners at the intermediate stage who want to decode unfamiliar characters by identifying their component parts.
Chinese Language Radicals — Why Learn Them?
Knowing radicals is one of the highest-leverage skills you can develop as a Chinese learner. When you encounter an unknown character, the radical often reveals the semantic category — 氵(water) tells you a character relates to liquid or flow; 口 (mouth) suggests speech or eating; 心 (heart) points to emotion or thought.
Beyond meaning, radicals help with stroke order (radicals follow consistent stroke patterns), dictionary lookup, and memory — grouping related characters by radical reduces memorisation load because you learn families of characters rather than isolated symbols. Research suggests learners who study character structure learn vocabulary 30–40% faster than those who memorise characters as whole units.
Mandarin Chinese Radicals by Stroke Count
The stroke count filter above lets you view all radicals with a specific number of strokes. One-stroke radicals (一, 丨, 丶, 丿, 乙) are the most abstract; 2-stroke radicals (like 人, 刀, 力, 口) are slightly more complex but still recognisable. Most practical radicals fall in the 2–6 stroke range and appear most frequently in everyday characters. Studying radicals in stroke-count order mirrors how calligraphy and character writing is taught in Chinese schools.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Chinese radicals are there?
The canonical Kangxi system has 214 radicals. However, modern simplified Chinese dictionaries sometimes use a reduced set of around 186–201 radicals, and some educational lists focus on the 100–120 most commonly encountered radicals. The 214 Kangxi radicals remain the international standard for traditional character dictionaries.
What is the most common Chinese radical?
The most frequently appearing radicals in everyday Chinese text include 人 (rén, person), 口 (kǒu, mouth), 氵(water), 木 (mù, wood), 心 (xīn, heart/mind), and 手/扌 (shǒu, hand). The radical 口 appears in hundreds of common characters including 吃 (eat), 喝 (drink), 叫 (call), and 唱 (sing).
How do Chinese radicals help you learn characters?
Radicals provide a semantic shortcut: when you see an unfamiliar character, identifying its radical often reveals the meaning category. For example, all characters with the water radical 氵 relate to liquid, weather, or flow. Radicals also group characters visually and mnemonically, reducing the memory load. Instead of memorising 3,000 characters as isolated symbols, you learn patterns across character families.
What is the difference between a radical and a character?
Every radical is a character (or simplified form of one), but not every character is a radical. A radical is specifically a character used as a classification key in dictionary systems. For example, 水 (water) is both a standalone character meaning water AND the radical used to classify water-related characters. When it appears as a component on the left side of a character, it takes the condensed form 氵.
Which Chinese radicals should I learn first?
Start with the 50 most common radicals that appear in HSK 1–3 vocabulary. Prioritise: 人 (person), 口 (mouth), 日 (sun/day), 月 (moon/month), 木 (wood), 水/氵 (water), 火 (fire), 土 (earth), 心/忄 (heart), 手/扌 (hand), 目 (eye), 女 (woman), 子 (child), 山 (mountain), and 大 (big). These 15 radicals alone unlock the meaning of hundreds of common characters.
Learn Characters Through Radicals
HSK Tutor groups related characters by radical, so you can learn families of words together. It's the fastest path from beginner to intermediate.