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 = ...
12
votes
Accepted
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 ...
12
votes
Accepted
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 ...
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 ...
9
votes
Accepted
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 ...
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. ...
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 ...
6
votes
Accepted
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 ...
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 ...
6
votes
Accepted
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 ...
5
votes
Accepted
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"....
5
votes
Accepted
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:...
5
votes
Accepted
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♦
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5
votes
Accepted
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 ...
5
votes
Accepted
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 '...
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 ...
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 ...
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....
4
votes
Accepted
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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'...
4
votes
Accepted
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 (...
4
votes
Accepted
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) ...
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
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
...
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), ...
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 ...
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