Kanji and radicals

[JohnCBriggs]

I have a general question and a more specific one about kanji
1) How do you look up an unknown kanji.
2) For the kanji 務 why is the radical 力　rather than 矛?
I am working on a book called "Let's Learn Kanji" and some of the activities require you to find the hiragana that matches the kanji. So how can I do it? I know two ways to try
A) Using the IME hand drawing mode I can enter it into JDIC and find it.
B) I can use radical lookup on my Pocket PC dictionary to put in unknown kanji.
So far, I don't know of any way to do this with the Canon Wordtank.
On the Pocket PC, I must know the radical before I can start, but I got stuck on this one 務　because I thought that 矛　or hoko-hen was the appropriate radical. After looking at it on JDIC, I find that the radical is 力 chikara. I don't know why this is or how to predict which radical to select out of a more complex kanji.
I would really like to be able to do the radical lookup because I always have the Pocket PC with me and would like to be able to lookup unknown kanji.
Also, any hope for the Wordtank?
Thanks
John C. Briggs

[Alan]

I'm not much good at figuring out the radicals myself yet. The good news is that there is a finite list of them, so not everything in a Kanji can be the radical.

On my wordtank, if you open the Kanjigen dictionary and scroll the cursor to the 'Radical' field, you can then enter the number of strokes in the radical you wish to select. So I type '2'. I then use the cursor keys to select カ and press Enter. All the kanji with that radical are now listed. Unfortunately there's loads. I did find 務 though. Pressing enter then brings up the information on the kanji as usual. If you count the strokes and know the radical and type both in, the search can be cut down quite a bit.

There's also a Parts search field, but I haven't figured that out.

[Girumon]

Kanjis dont have "the" radical. Theyre made up of radicals.

Though I guess some or maybe all kanji have something Ive heard some people call a strong radical, which depending on its placement helps identify the kanjis meaning.

[JohnCBriggs]

Alanさん,
Thank you that was helpful. In the Wordtank, I was able to put in 力 as the radical and 11 as strokes and that reduces the list to only 7 kanji. However, I still don't know why 力 is the right radical.

Girumonさん,
Perhaps I didn't ask the question in a clear enough way. I realize that kanji are made up of radicals (and elements), but it seems like there is one "key?" radical for each kanji. For example 務 is made up of three radicals
1) 力、　ちから strong
2) 冬、　ふゆがしら winter
3) 矛、　ほこ halberd
but to look up this kanji, you must use 力 as the radical. The other two will not work for the electronic dictionaries.
For me, being American, I thought that the へん radical (on the left) made sense as the important one, but I guess it is not. Perhaps it is the radical that has the fewest strokes that is the important one.
Thanks
John C. Briggs

[annie]

For me, being American, I thought that the へん radical (on the left) made sense as the important one, but I guess it is not. Perhaps it is the radical that has the fewest strokes that is the important one.

Often times, it is the radical on the left that kanji are listed under in the dictionary, but not always. I've found that some radicals are simply more popular than others (like 力). There's probably some method to the radical determination, but I don't know what it is. Fewer strokes seems like as good of a reason as any.

I've never put any effort into studying radicals, but I probably have at least 95% accuracy in guessing what they are, so I think it's something that becomes natural eventually.

[JohnCBriggs]

Annieさん,
Thanks for your input here. Many times I guess the radical correctly too. But it is very frustrating when I guess wrong and cannot find the unknown kanji.
It would be nice if there was a rule for which radical is the right one to look up in the dictionary.
John

[Airth]

Radical look-up can be an absolute nightmare. Saying that, in the Japanese-English Character Dictionary, Nelson sets out twelve rules that will isolate the radical for almost all the kanji; but, I don't know how widely, if at all, his system has been adopted.

If I were to run into a case such as this, I would enter the names of the parts into my electronic dictionary or Kanjigen software. For example, I entered ちから and ほこ resulting in just two characters: 務 and 霧. Does your wordtank support this function?

[annie]

Johnさん、
I definitely agree. And I think that my recent lack of frustration has been due to lack of studying.

If you're looking up kanji when you have access to your computer try out jedict. (a free download from somewhere) It lets you look up kanji by entering in as many of the kanji's components as you want.

That's what I always use for those mystery kanji that I can't find any other way.

[JohnCBriggs]

Airthさん、
　　　Thank you very much. You prompted me to dig deeper into the Canon Wordtank manual.
Indeed you can search by parts so I put in
ほこ＆ちから＆ぼく
and came up with only two kanji 務　and 霧. That is a big help.
Thanks also for the tip on Nelson's book. I do have that but honestly I have not used it. However, despite the complexity of the 12 step process of determining the key radical, it actually fails for 務. Well, actually it works for Nelson, but fails for the Wordtank and JDIC. Let me clarify
For 務 the 12 step process shows that the left radical (矛) is the key radical and that is how 務 is organized in Nelson. However, according to JDIC and Wordtank, and my Pocket PC the key radical is 力. So I guess the process is not perfect.

Annieさん,
Thanks for the tip on JEDICT, I think I have it somewhere on my machine already, but I have not used it much. I tend to use the JDIC website, but perhaps it has something similar.
As I have said before, the MS IME handwriting feature works well for unknown kanji, but I cannot use this on my Pocket PC or Wordtank and feel like I should really learn to master the radical input.
Thanks
John C. Briggs

[Alan]

Airthさん
Thanks to your example, I also can now use the parts field on my word tank.
Typing in ちから&ほこ did the trick. (I only got a shortform english manual with it, so get a bit stuck sometimes.)

The 12 step process looks interesting (even if it doesn't work all the time). I would also like to master radical look-up as searching just by stroke count takes too long & subject to error. Currently I do much better with my Kanji Learners dictionary, than with the wordtank, but don't usually carry that dictionary with me. 頑張る私ね。

[Airth]

John and Alan, I'm glad you've uncovered the parts lookup function in your dictionaries. Hopefully, it'll save you a lot of time in the future. It certainly has for me up till now.

These days most Japanese people studying English seem to have an extremely expensive electronic dictionary, and yet they only use about 10% of the features. They are always amazed when I point out some hidden function that they can make use of. I remember it took me about a week of head-scratching to read the manual for mine, but I suppose most of them never bother.