16 votes
Accepted

Are there characters in which the radicals are the same but the position changes the meaning?

Same meaning: 崕 = 崖 (ㄧㄚˊ / yá) = cliff; precipice 峰 = 峯 (ㄈㄥ / fēng) = peak; summit 毗 = 毘 (ㄆㄧˊ / pí) = to adjoin; to border on 群 = 羣 (ㄑㄩㄣˊ / qún) = group; crowd 飃 = 飄 (ㄆㄧㄠ / piāo) = to float 鄰 = ...
vuluvsa's user avatar
  • 1,404
12 votes
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How do I look up a graph in 說文通訓定聲?

How to look up an entry in 《說文通訓定聲》? 前言 Introduction 一般中文字典的內容是按部首字形分類排列。 《說文通訓定聲》則是依音韻分類排列。 從內容順序來看,作者 朱駿聲 是假設讀者已熟悉字的音韻。 所以,他先列出自創的「古韻十八部」做為「總目」,然後才是各部的內容。 The contents of common Chinese ...
hinen's user avatar
  • 5,886
12 votes
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Radicals in 等 - Why 士 instead of 土?

Things that contain「寺」may be written with「士」in the Taiwanese standard, while other regions (Mainland China, Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan) use「土」. The decomposition listed on that page is based on the ...
dROOOze's user avatar
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10 votes

For the character"冒",is the top part "日" or "曰"?

For the character"冒",is the top part "日" or "曰"? Neither. 冒 is comprised of simultaneously semantic and phonetic 冃 (mào, hat) and phonetic 目 (mù). The word that both 冃 and 冒 originally represented ...
dROOOze's user avatar
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9 votes
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Why do cat (猫) and dog (狗) share the same 犭 radical?

The radical in 猫 actually comes from 豸 zhi4 (beast), which you can still see in the traditional character 貓. Whereas the radical in 狗 is in fact 犭 quan3. The simplified version of 猫 got the 犭 ...
blackgreen's user avatar
  • 5,452
9 votes
Accepted

Can I always write the 艹 (grass radical) with three lines only?

Two notes: 艹 is 4 strokes in Taiwan and Hong Kong only. It is less helpful to think of it as a "traditional"/"simplified" difference, as among other standards which use "traditional characters" (e.g. ...
dROOOze's user avatar
  • 22.2k
8 votes

Can one radical contain another radical?

To ask an analogous question about the shapes of the letters in the Latin alphabet: Does the letter "E" contain the the letter "F"? It seems that "E" is just "F" with an extra horizontal line ...
dROOOze's user avatar
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6 votes
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Are radicals a relatively new invention for looking up dictionaries?

I believe that Chinese characters are born with radicals, but they were not classified by radicals until Shuowen Jiezi. To understand why radicals appeared at that time, we need to know that in the ...
Aurus Huang's user avatar
  • 2,020
6 votes

Are radicals a relatively new invention for looking up dictionaries?

I think your phrasing may be ambiguous, so I'll answer in two ways. If you're asking if characters didn't have a radical and then one was added - thereby changing the character - for classification ...
vermillon's user avatar
  • 592
6 votes
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What are characters called when they have three of the same radical used?

maybe, called “三疊字”, have a look of this page 10個少見「三疊字」 你識唔識讀? btw, the wiki page: https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/三叠字 have fun :) edited. i checked a book in literary chinese, it was called “三字”. a ...
水巷孑蠻's user avatar
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5 votes
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Question to radical (部首)"辵"

Your idea is correct, at least most Chinese people agree with this. But in this case, 辵 is acturally combined of 彳 and 止. 彳 means "walk slowly" or "the step with left foot". 止 means "stop" or "halt"....
CFSO6459's user avatar
5 votes
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Chinese names for different types of radicals?

部首: Radical, used for indexing dictionaries (Shuowen radicals, Kangxi radicals, radicals in modern dictionaries, etc.). 聲符1: Phonetic component. Also called 音符, but 音符 may also mean ‘musical note’. 意符:...
米好 '-''s user avatar
  • 1,660
5 votes
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Why does 写 not have a dot on top?

The, new, Outliers dictionary provides some insight as to how 寫 became 写: FORM 写 is shorthand for 寫. The top part, 冖, is a common abbreviation for 宀. The bottom part is a shorthand abbreviation for 舄 ...
Mou某's user avatar
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5 votes
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Why are the lists of Kangxi radicals different everywhere?

There are exactly (no exceptions) 214 Kangxi radicals: Any misunderstanding to the number of these probably comes from a confusion to what radicals actually are. Remember that radicals are dictionary ...
dROOOze's user avatar
  • 22.2k
5 votes
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Can one radical contain another radical?

You're right and not missing anything, 犬 quan 'dog' is written as 大 da 'big' plus 丶 zhu/dian 'dot'. There are more examples like that, for example, 金 jin 'gold' contains 人 ren 'person' and 王 wang '...
John Frazer's user avatar
5 votes
Accepted

Is the official radical for 巨 “工” or “匚”?

Since radicals are dictionary headers, "what is the radical of X" is dependent on the dictionary you're looking at. The most internationally-agreed-upon dictionary radicals for Chinese ...
dROOOze's user avatar
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5 votes

Different first stroke forms of 月 (yuè)

It's common for components to be drawn is multiple ways depending on their location in the characters. Compare 朋 阴 望 嬴 with 有 肓 育 肯 脊. Perhaps this distinction is more apparent when 衣 is used in ...
Becky 李蓓's user avatar
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5 votes

Are there any tools for combining multiple radicals into a single character?

The closest thing I can think of 字统 is https://zi.tools. (There's also 字海 http://www.yedict.com which you cannot search Ideographic Description Character sequence and GlyphWiki which I trust much less....
lilysirius's user avatar
  • 4,485
4 votes
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What do the character components in 旅 and 派 represent?

though part of the right component of the character "旅" & "派" look similar, they've different origin. 旅 (u+65c5) is a character since oracle bone script, that it's composed by 㫃 (u+3ac3), plus 2 ...
水巷孑蠻's user avatar
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4 votes

Question to radical (部首)"辵"

Not to dismiss most part of @Patrick and @CFSO6459's answers, I want to add that they are not entirely right to try to make too much sense of 部首(radical). The first attempt of modern radical system ...
Violapterin's user avatar
4 votes

Character-component "spelling" software

Well, actually many input tools like Sogou and MSpinyin have already had such functions. I don't know a lot of the database you referred to, but I guess it is the database of China's household ...
Gestaltfilter's user avatar
4 votes
Accepted

Significance of 門 in traditional chinese

On the radical 門/门 In both the traditional and simplified font script, 門/门 is a fairly common radical. Compare: 閉/闭: shut (eyes...) 間/间: interval, space... 閑/闲: fence, barrier; idle In ...
Ludi's user avatar
  • 2,768
4 votes

Radicals vs glyph origins (specifically for character 肚 in 肚子)

Look at the middle parts, they are different. 月 = 月 (moon) 肉 = ⺼ (meat) ⺼ - 肉部首 (俗稱「提肉旁」):CJK RADICAL MEAT (U+2EBC) 簡體將從此形的字歸入月部。 Simplified Chinese characters merged ⺼radical into 月 radical The '土'...
Tang Ho's user avatar
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4 votes
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Is there a reason the 月 radical occurs many times in body part names?

Similar questions have been asked in both Chinese and Japanese StackExchange before. In summary, what appears as 月 in printed text is actually the graphical merger between ⺼ (simplified form of 肉 (...
dROOOze's user avatar
  • 22.2k
4 votes
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Why is 伴 used for buddy?

伴 is a 形聲字 (Semantic-phonetic compound character) The 亻 radical means 人 (person/ people) ; it is the semantic component of the character '伴' ( the word 'companion' is related to 'people') 半(bàn) ...
Tang Ho's user avatar
  • 77.2k
4 votes

Chinese character decomposition

recent studies called them components (部件). there're 1300+ basic component: http://chardb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/system_intro.jsp
水巷孑蠻's user avatar
  • 15.1k
4 votes

Chinese character decomposition

There are multiple ways to decompose Chinese characters: Decomposed into the different... Approximate English analogue Example historical character combinations etymology 有 ← 𠂇 + ⺼ components ...
月--'s user avatar
  • 514
4 votes

When 马 is used as the left component (e.g. in 骑), does the 一 héng stroke change to ㇀ tí?

According to 《通用规范汉字表》("General Standard Chinese Character Table"), "左部件或左上部件末笔为横的,应该变形为提"(The end stroke of the left part or the upper left part is horizontal character stroke(横), ...
T-Pioneer's user avatar
  • 1,273
4 votes

What is the Mandarin PinYin pronunciation for the Bushou that cannot be typed?

FYI, you're overemphasising the importance of this. Firstly, the de facto international Chinese character radical indexing standard is the Kangxi system for orthodox characters, which is what Unicode ...
dROOOze's user avatar
  • 22.2k

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