Learn about the plant radical 艹
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| Hi everyone. |
| Welcome to the Japanese Kanji video series. |
| In this lesson, you'll learn the "plant" radical. |
| Take a look at these kanji characters. Can you guess what they mean? |
| By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to grasp the meaning behind these kanji characters. |
| 花, 苗, 茶, 菜 |
| First off, can you spot the radical that's common in all of these kanji characters? |
| It's this part here. |
| 艹 |
| This particular radical is called... |
| くさかんむり |
| It's otherwise known as the "plant" radical and it's used in some of the most common of all kanji characters. Let's take a look at it in more detail. |
| Meaning |
| On its own, the "plant" radical looks like this. |
| 艹 |
| In some of the previous lessons, you learned that some radicals are kanji characters on their own. |
| This radical isn't a kanji character in itself. This basically means that you'll only encounter it as a component in other kanji characters. |
| When it's a component in a kanji, it adds the meaning of "plant" to the entire kanji character. |
| 花, 苗, 茶, 菜 |
| From left to right, the first kanji means "flower," the second means "seedling, sapling, shoot," the third character means "tea" and the fourth character means "vegetable, side dish, greens." |
| 1. 花 |
| The first kanji has the "plant" radical, paired with this second character. 化 This second character is also a kanji in itself. This character means "change." |
| You could think of this character in this way: together, the "plant" radical and this bottom character 化, refer to buds changing. This kanji character means "flower." |
| 2. 苗 |
| The second kanji has the "plant" radical paired with the kanji 田 for "rice field." Here’s an easy way to remember this: you can imagine people planting seedlings in a rice field. |
| So this kanji means "seedling, sapling, shoot." |
| 3. 茶 |
| The third kanji has the "plant" radical and means "tea." |
| 4. 菜 |
| The last kanji means "vegetable, side dish, greens." |
| For more ways to remember these characters and many more kanji examples that include the "plant" radical, go to JapanesePod101.com and check the Lesson Notes PDF. OK. Let's move on! |
| Common positions |
| The "plant" radical is always in the top-position, known as the "crown-position" and connects with another radical below it. Because of this, it's easily recognisable. |
| As seen in the original examples for "flower," "seedling, sapling, shoot," "tea," and "vegetable, side dish, greens." |
| When the "plant" radical is part of another kanji character, it stays the same in appearance. |
| Okay. Now let's learn how to write this radical. |
| Stroke Order |
| Now let's take a look at the stroke order of the "plant" radical. The "plant" radical is very simple. There are only three strokes. |
| When the radical is on its own, it looks like this: |
| 艹 |
| First draw a long, horizontal stroke. |
| Then draw a short, vertical stroke a little left of center. |
| Finally put another short, vertical stroke a little right of center. And you've written the "plant" radical! |
| The "plant" radical is always in the top-position and connect with another radical below it. The appearance stays the same. |
| And that's it! You're done! |
| Common Readings |
| The "plant" radical isn't a kanji on its own, so you'll only see it as a part of another kanji. |
| In the case of the original examples, common readings are... |
| カ、はな |
| 花 |
| for the kanji meaning "flower." |
| ビョウ、ミョウ、なえ、なわ |
| 苗 |
| for the "seedling, sapling, shoot" kanji. |
| チャ、サ |
| 茶 |
| for the "tea" kanji. And... |
| サイ、な |
| 菜 |
| for the kanji meaning "vegetable, side dish, greens." |
| Lesson Review |
| In this lesson, you learned about the "plant" radical. |
| This radical isn't a kanji character on its own, so you'll only see it in other kanji characters, such as "flower," "seedling, sapling, shoot," "tea" and "vegetable, side dish, greens" in which this radical appears. |
| You'll always find this radical in the top-position. |
| And it's written with three strokes, starting with a long, horizontal stroke and two short, vertical strokes. |
| In the next lesson, you'll learn about another common radical used in some of the most common and basic kanji characters, the "fire" radical. |
| See you in the next lesson. Bye! |
| Bye~! |
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