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How to Find
The Kanji
Radical
GUIDE

by Kristen D

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Radicals are the building blocks of kanji,

the once Chinese characters that are
used as one of the three writing systems
in Japan today. While you may be
familiar with the term radical many
people dont really know what they are
or how to find the radical within a kanji
that determines its arrangement and
organization.
If youre a WaniKani user, you need
to know that these arent the same types
of radicals that youre learning. This is
the official (read: traditional) system
used in dictionaries and taught in
Japanese schools. While WaniKani
teaches you useful mnemonics to piece
together and understand what kanji are
made of, finding the radical is a different
process.
Before we dive in, you should already be
familiar with kanji stroke order. Being
able to recognize the number of strokes
in a kanji is essential for what were
about to go over. If you ever want to use
a traditional or electronic dictionary,
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have proper Japanese handwriting,

and/or practice shodo (Calligraphy),
proper stroke order is a must.

What is a Kanji
Radical?
Radicals, known in Japanese as bushu
, are a way to classify characters in
order to find them in a list or collection.
Sometimes they can help you figure out
the meaning of the kanji, but most of the
time theyre just there to help you find
out where they are. Radicals have their
own nicknames in Japanese to help
understand them, but even most
Japanese people cant name them all
from memory.

The Kangxi
Radicals

First, lets look at how the radicals are

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categorized. The Kangxi radical system is

a set of 214 radicals that are used to
classify all of the kanji used in Japanese.
Many Japanese character dictionaries are
arranged by this system, instead of the
Japanese Syllabary Order , also
known as AIUEO Order ,
which some beginner kanji dictionaries
and vocabulary dictionaries use.
The Kangxi name comes from the
original Chinese dictionary that
standardized the system of classification
back at the beginning of the 18th
century, the Kangxi Dictionary (
). Though the idea of arranging
characters by their 214 unique radicals
was initially introduced a century earlier
in the Zihui Dictionary (), it wasnt
until the Kangxi Dictionary that the
system became widely accepted. The
Zihui Dictionary was also the first to sort
characters by their stroke order.
Radicals are generally broken up into
categories based on that number of
strokes. For instance, the lowest number
of strokes a radical can have is one, and
there are six different unique radicals
that can have one stroke. The highest
number of strokes a radical can have is
seventeen, and there is only one, the
radical (flute).

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Why are
Radicals Important?
You may be wondering why learning
about the Kangxi radicals and how to
find the radical is important. While the
Kangxi radical system isnt the only
existing list of radicals, it is widely used
by almost all Japanese English
Character Dictionaries, including online
dictionaries.
If youre trying to look up a character
and you dont know the meaning or
pronunciation, and you dont have
electronic dictionaries or smartphones
to draw what you see, the last option you
have is to find the radical(s) and look it
up that way.
Understanding and identifying radicals is
a great skill to have and the more you
practice, the more familiar you get with
them, the easier looking up new kanji
gets.

Not Everything is
a Radical!
One of the misconceptions Ive run into
is people thinking that all radicals are
kanji in themselves. While there are
plenty of characters where the radical is
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also a kanji, it isnt universally true. Its

like saying that all letters are words
because it works for the letter I.
However, radicals like may be found
in kanji like (bad luck) and (exit),
but isnt a character, its just a radical.
While there seem to be arguments online
about this, not every part of a character
is a radical either. At least, not in the
official sense. Yes, there are kanji made
up of two or more radicals like
(cedar) which is made up of the radicals
and (Well go over how to
determine which one is the radical its
classified under a little later on) but not
everything is so cut and dry. For
example, in the kanji (summit) the
portion on the left is not a radical. The
only radical here is . Have another
example: In the kanji (learning) that
top part? Not a radical. The only radical
here is . How can I say they arent
radicals? Well they arent listed within
the 214. So while, yes, those other pieces
also make up the character, they arent
officially radicals. (Remember that this is
for classification purposes those extra
bits are still important to the kanji, just
not if youre trying to find out where
they are in a list.)
Radicals were not made up to help you
learn Japanese. If they were, there would
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probably be enough to cover all the parts

that make up a character. Again, theyre
the pieces of the kanji that Chinese
scholars recognized and used to help
with categorization. Dont sit down and
memorize all 214 radicals and expect to
know Japanese. The official radicals and
their nicknames arent meant to help you
figure out what a kanji means. What a
shame.

Modified Radicals
Radicals also dont always look the same
in every situation. There are radicals that
take different forms if you put them on
top, to the left, or on the bottom portion
of a character. Here are all the radicals
that have variations:
Radical

Variant(s)

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, ,

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, ,,

,,

,,

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Some of them are fairly simple and dont

change very drastically, but as you can
see there are some that do. Its easy to
get tripped up looking for a radical and
realizing later that you were trying to
look up at variant the whole time.

The Seven Radical

Locations
There are seven different locations
where you can find the radical of a
character. If the radical uses a variation,
the main version is next to it in
parentheses.
Hen Left Side
Examples: () in ,
() in ,() in
Tsukuri Right Side
Examples: () in ,
in , in
Kanmuri Top
Examples: () in ,
in in , in

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Ashi Bottom
Examples: in ,
() in , in
Tare Northwest
Examples: in , in
, in
Ny Southwest
Examples: () in ,
in , in
Kamae Enclosure
Examples: in , in
, in
There are also a few kamae
variants:

The Twelve Steps

to Finding the
Radical
Now that you know where the radicals
can be, the hard part is in finding which
radical is the radical, or rather, the
radical it will be categorized under.
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Luckily, there are twelve almost easy

steps to finding the radical. They are as
follows:
1. Is the whole character the
radical?
The most obvious, and yet
sometimes the most difficult to find,
are the ones that are radicals
themselves.
For example, , , , and are
all kanji where the whole thing is the
radical.
2. Does it only have one radical?
Sometimes there is only one radical
in the character.
only has the radical , and
only has the radical .
3. Is there an enclosure?
If you find a character that has a
radical covering 2 4 sides, thats
usually the radical.
In the radical is , in the
radical is , in the radical is .
4. Is there an obvious radical on
the left?
The left radical should have nothing
above or below it, and should not be
intersecting with anything on the
right.
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In the radical is , in the

radical is . Note that the parts of
the characters that are on the right
side are not radicals.
5. What about on the right?
This is the same as the last one, but
on the opposite side.
In the radical is , and in the
radical is .
6. How about on top?
Many top radicals look like slanted
roofs.
In the radical is , and in the
radical is .
7. Okay, try the bottom?
These can be tricky, but remember if
there are two or more parts on top,
the radical might be on the bottom.
In the radical is , and in the
radical is .
Now is the point where you only
continue if you tried all of the other
steps and still couldnt find the
radical.
8. Northwest?
If we look at the character there
is a lot going on. The left and right
sides are not radicals by themselves.
So we look northwest, or top left,
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first, and see that the radical is .

9. Northeast?
So there was nothing in the
northwest, how about northeast, or
top right?
In the only part that is a radical is
.
10. Southeast?
You cant find anything at the top, so
move down from where you were.
In we once again find the radical
to be .
11. Southwest?
Last weird direction. Move back to
the bottom left and sometimes the
radical will be there. Look at this
character all of these corners
are radicals! So you take the bottom
left, .
Here, have an easier one, is not
an enclosure radical because that
top part isnt a radical at all. is
the radical.
12. Okay, I give up, is it on the
inside?
You dont have to wait until youve
gone through all of the other steps
to see these.
In the radical is , in the
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radical is , and in the radical is

.
Remember if there are two radicals in
the same position, always go with the
one with the higher number of strokes.
Also, make sure the part youre picking is
actually one of the 214 Kangxi radicals.
Sometimes the first thing you pick might
look like its right because of its position,
but if it isnt one of the 214, then its
technically not a radical, and you wont
be able to find it because the section
youre looking for doesnt exist!
Nelsons method is not the only way you
can find the radical, in fact many
character dictionaries have their own
methods. Sometimes there are
modifications made in order to fit the
way the dictionary organizes its radicals,
so make sure when youre using a new
one to take a look at their guide just in
case there are any differences.

Missing Radicals
Unfortunately (and fortunately for us
language learners), thanks to kanji
simplification by the Japanese
government, some kanji lost their
radicals. The solution was to give them
new radicals, but that doesnt make them
any easier to find.
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Lets look at two examples:

Traditional Traditional Simplified New
Form

Radical

Form

Radical

You can see why they had to change the

categorization of these kanji. The
problem is when youre trying to find the
simplified version of a character and all
you have is the traditional version to go
by. Luckily, if you have a good dictionary
you can still look up the old character
and it will reference the newer,
simplified version.

The Most Common

Radicals
The following is a list of some of the
most frequently used radicals out of the
214. It can be helpful to become familiar
with at least this list and their variants,
but you really dont have to memorize
them by any means. Ive also included
their English nicknames, but they arent
official, just helpful when trying to
understand what youre looking at.
Radical
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Reading

Nickname
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one

rod, line

dot

slash, kana no

lid

(,)

man

eight

()

sword, knife

cross, ten

cliff

mouth
box,

earth

woman

roof, kana u

earth

woman

roof, kana u

(, )

little, small

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enclosure

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flag, corpse

mountain

cloth, turban

dotted cliff

bow

going man,

step

(,)

heart

(, )

()

sun

tree

(,)

water

()

fire

hand
folding chair,
rap

(, )

cow

()

dog

jewel, jade

(, ,
)

rice field,
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field

dish

eye

stone

sick,
sickness

showing,

()

()

bamboo

rice

()

thread, silk

ear

()

meat

ship, boat

()

grass

bug, insect

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spirit
two branch
tree, grain
stand,
standing

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()

clothes,
clothing
see, seeing

()

small shell

()

foot

cart, car

road, walk

(,,
)
(,,

speech,
speaking

city, right
village

()

metal, gold

gate

()

left village,
mound
old bird,

short tailed
bird

rain

big shell, leaf

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()

eat, food

horse

fish

bird

Now that you know all about radicals,

why dont you put your new knowledge
to the test in a kanji dictionary? Good
luck!

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