In my post, Written Chinese: Where do I start? I mentioned that when I first came to China, the idea of a radical was just as foreign as I was and being able to use them to read had never even crossed my mind. I remember the class when my Chinese teacher said we were going to… Read More
Did you know there are 218 Chinese radicals? Although that sounds like a lot, many of them have a very specific meaning and can be extremely useful when learning to read (and write) Chinese characters. Often, a radical will ‘connect’ all the characters with that same radical, which helps you to remember them. For example,… Read More
Continuing on with our ‘radical’ series, I decided to give you some more information about 草字头 (cǎo zì tóu), the grass radical. 草字头 (cǎo zì tóu) means ‘grass on the head’ and is always found on the top of a character. I really like 艹 because unlike some radicals, most of the characters featuring this radical… Read More
Chinese Radicals This is another in a series of articles that takes a closer look at a specific Chinese radical. Radicals are the ‘building blocks’ of the Chinese language and help students of Chinese to learn to read Chinese characters. The root radical shows us the meaning behind the character. For example, if a character… Read More
木字旁 (mù zì pang) or the tree radical, is seen in many Chinese characters with a ‘natural’ meaning such as trees 李子 (lǐ zi) plum tree, fruits such as 橙子 (chéng zi) orange and even wooden objects, such as 柜子 (guì zi) cabinet. It can also be seen in less obvious characters, some of which are featured below. Here are… Read More
To continue with our radical-ly themed blog posts and to show a bit of love to all of you Written Chinese followers, 心字底 (xīn zì dǐ), or the heart radical is this week’s choice. The heart radical can be written in two ways; either at the bottom of a character as in 想 (xiǎng), 忘… Read More
Radicals are the building blocks of Chinese characters and show us the meaning or sometimes pronunciation of a character. If you’re interested in learning to read and write Chinese characters, radicals are an integral part of the learning process, and you can check out our article, The Radical Truth, to find out why learning radical… Read More
Chinese characters can often be broken up into smaller pieces, or “radicals.” These radicals can give clues to a word’s meaning and pronunciation. One of the easiest radicals to spot in Chinese is 氵 三点水 (sān diǎn shuǐ), or the water radical. If you encounter this radical on the left side of a character, you can be almost certain… Read More
I have previously written about how “Radicals Are Your Friend.” and in this article, I will introduce a specific radical that has been extremely helpful for me to learn: Meet The Food Radical: 食字旁 (shí zì pang) 食字旁 (shí zì pang) or 饣字旁 (shí zì pang), literally means ‘the food one on the side’! This… Read More
It will only take [est_time] to read this post! Here is another one of Bethany’s great posts which is perfect for those of you new to the Chinese language. If you’ve been studying spoken Chinese for a while and now want to learn to read and write Chinese characters, you’ll definitely want to get to… Read More
If you’re new to learning how to read and write Chinese, you may not have come across radicals yet. But you’re here now, so let me introduce you to Chinese radicals! Before you start, let me tell you that radicals are really an essential part of learning to read Chinese characters as they are the… Read More
We believe in transparency, so we want to let you know that some links on our site are affiliates (which is what helps us keep the lights on!), but rest assured, all opinions are ours. As Chinese learners ourselves, we’re dedicated to giving you our honest feedback about Chinese learning tools. Hi, nice to see… Read More
A couple of months ago, I sent out an email asking what people’s biggest problems were or are with studying Chinese. I was overwhelmed by the responses I received from users of all levels and I have managed to whittle down everyone’s replies down to these 10 questions. Some of these learning problems came up… Read More
Many people think that they have “bad memories”, but did you know that most people have strikingly similar memory capacities? 1The way that we use our memories is far more important than our brain’s genetic makeup. Forgetting how to write a Chinese character that you’ve studied before happens so often for Chinese learners. Even native… Read More
If you don’t have time to study this now, just and read it later! We recently posted an article about the 6 types of Chinese characters and how they came to exist. This follow up post, takes a look at 20 pictograph or pictogram characters found in written Chinese. Although there is a slight explanation… Read More
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WrittenChinese.Com was founded several years ago when Chinese learning tools were few and far between. The idea was to create Chinese tools that were not only user friendly but that also made learning Chinese enjoyable. Here we are 5 years later with four Mobile Apps, online learning tools and a massive following of people who see… Read More
If you are only just starting out learning Chinese characters you may have already come across some Chinese characters that, to the inexperienced eye, look exactly the same. It’s different to get over the idea that they are different and that it is possible, by following some simple rules, to distinguish between these characters. How to… Read More
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