Learn what kanji radicals are
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Intro |
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| Michael: What are kanji radicals? |
| Risa: And why is it important to learn them? |
| Michael: At JapanesePod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Karen Lee notices that a new family has moved into her neighborhood. She sees their surname written on their door in romaji, but she is curious about how it would be written in kanji. She asks her friend, Ai Nakamura, |
| "How do you write this surname in kanji?" |
| Karen Lee: この名字は、漢字でどう書きますか。 (Kono myōji wa, kanji de dō kakimasu ka.) |
| Dialogue |
| Karen Lee: この名字は、漢字でどう書きますか。 (Kono myōji wa, kanji de dō kakimasu ka.) |
| Ai Nakamura: きへんに木です。 (Kihen ni ki desu.) |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Karen Lee: この名字は、漢字でどう書きますか。 (Kono myōji wa, kanji de dō kakimasu ka.) |
| Michael: "How do you write this surname in kanji?" |
| Ai Nakamura: きへんに木です。 (Kihen ni ki desu.) |
| Michael: "A tree with a tree radical on the left." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: As you may know, the Japanese writing system consists of three sets of characters: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. The kanji, in particular, are known to be exceptionally challenging, but they can also be broken down into smaller components. |
| These smaller components are called radicals, or |
| Risa: 部首 (bushu). |
| Michael: You can think of radicals as being the "the building blocks of kanji." Every kanji has a radical, and sometimes the radical itself can be a kanji on its own. The term "radical" can be used loosely to refer to each element in a kanji, but you will also find that each kanji has one key radical, which can also be used for looking up the character in a kanji dictionary. |
| By learning radicals, you will not only better understand the kanji that you have learned, but you will even gain insight on many of the characters that you have yet to study. |
| Instead of learning individual kanji, one at a time, by learning just a few of the most common radicals, you will be able to read and understand several of the most frequently used kanji in Japanese. |
| This is especially useful given the large amount of kanji that there are to learn: The list of the most common kanji, known as the |
| Risa: 常用漢字 (Jōyō kanji), |
| Michael: alone, includes more than 2,000 characters. However, by simply studying kanji radicals, you'll be able to quickly identify the root of any character that you encounter. This may jog your memory when trying to recall a character that you've previously studied, or, at least, give you a general sense of the meaning or pronunciation of a new word. |
| Michael: Take, for example, the character |
| Risa: 時 (とき, toki). |
| Michael: The radical for this character is |
| Risa: 日 (ひへん, hihen), |
| Michael: which can mean "sun," "day," or "time." Using this information, we can deduce that the meaning of |
| Risa: 時 (とき, toki) |
| Michael: is related to "time." As another example, consider the character |
| Risa: 持（もつ, motsu） |
| Michael: in which we see the kanji radical known as |
| Risa: 扌(てへん, tehen), |
| Michael: meaning "hand." It should then come as no surprise that the overall meaning of the character is "to hold." |
| Michael: As a Japanese language learner, a great place to start is by mastering the most common kanji radicals. These appear often in the Japanese characters used in texts and everyday life in Japan. Even if you cannot identify every character in a word or phrase, knowing the radicals will give you a head start. Here are six of the most common kanji radicals: |
| Michael: First, we have |
| Risa: 口 (くちへん, kuchihen), |
| Michael: which means "mouth." Next, we have |
| Risa: 氵 (さんずい, sanzui), |
| Michael: meaning "water." Third, we have |
| Risa: 木 (きへん, kihen), |
| Michael: meaning "tree." Following that, we have |
| Risa: 亻 (にんべん, ninben), |
| Michael: which means "person." Fifth, we have |
| Risa: 扌 (てへん, tehen), |
| Michael: which as we have seen, means "hand." And lastly, we have |
| Risa: 忄(りっしんべん, risshinben) |
| Michael: which means "heart." |
| Michael: Start with these simple radicals when learning kanji, and you'll soon build up your vocabulary faster than you thought possible! |
| Practice Section |
| Let's review the sample conversation: respond to the prompts by speaking aloud, and then listen carefully as Risa models the correct answer. Repeat after her, with the focus on your pronunciation. Are you ready? |
| How do you say, "How do you write this surname in kanji?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Risa: この名字は、漢字でどう書きますか。 (Kono myōji wa, kanji de dō kakimasu ka.) |
| Michael: Did you get it right? Listen again and repeat. Remember to focus on your pronunciation. |
| Risa: この名字は、漢字でどう書きますか。 (Kono myōji wa, kanji de dō kakimasu ka.) |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Risa: この名字は、漢字でどう書きますか。 (Kono myōji wa, kanji de dō kakimasu ka.) |
| Michael: Let's move on to the second sentence. How do you say, "A tree with a tree radical on the left." |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Risa: きへんに木です。 (Kihen ni ki desu.) |
| Michael: Did you get it right this time? Listen again and repeat. |
| Risa: きへんに木です。 (Kihen ni ki desu.) |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Risa: きへんに木です。 (Kihen ni ki desu.) |
| Michael: The last line can be translated as "a tree with a tree radical on the left," so the kanji in question is |
| Risa: 林 (はやし, hayashi). |
| Michael: This character has a tree radical in the left position, or |
| Risa: きへん (kihen), |
| Michael: and a tree, or |
| Risa: 木 (ki), |
| Michael: on the right. In other words, it's written as two "trees" next to each other, and has the meaning of "grove" or "forest." |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: Most kanji represent an idea, and therefore contain a wealth of information. The radicals used in these kanji give us tremendous clues as to the given meaning behind these characters. By memorizing kanji as a combination of parts, you can greatly simplify the learning process and thus see the importance of learning each kanji radical, as well as its meaning. |
| Expansion |
| Michael: Some radicals can be kanji on their own. For example, consider the character |
| Risa: 手 (て, te). |
| Michael: The meaning behind this kanji is "hand." When written on its own, it occupies the entire imaginary square where the kanji is supposed to be included. However, when the radical appears as a part of another kanji, as in |
| Risa: 持 (もつ, motsu), |
| Michael: the appearance slightly changes, as it occupies only a portion of the square. Other examples of radicals which are their own kanji include |
| Risa: 人 (ひと, hito) |
| Michael: meaning "man," |
| Risa: 水 (みず, mizu) |
| Michael: meaning "water," and |
| Risa: 心 (こころ, kokoro) |
| Michael: meaning "heart." |
Outro |
| Michael: That's all for this lesson. Make sure to see the lesson notes, where you'll find a table including all the radicals that we've mentioned. Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Risa: またね！ (mata-ne!) |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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