This project came out of the fact that as I began learning the characters I realized that knowing the radicals helped me learn new characters a whole lot faster than just trying to remember each character based on it's own merits, since sound and meaning is typically included in the component choices. What I find is strange is just about all the advice for studying chinese I've read and been given says learning the radicals isn't so important for a beginning student. Possibly because of this view I could find very little material that allows someone to study just the radicals themselves.
This is basically a dictionary which covers all the radicals and their variants; several components are also included. The data includes meaning, notes, and etymology. Frequency information is included for the KangXi radicals and their variants (this is RANK, higher means more frequent). There is also a note for each character whether there is any point in learning it as a standalone character. The additional radicals from the modern simplified chinese tables are covered where possible, though in some cases these radicals only exist in extension B.
I've now updated this for Pleco 2.0, the updates include:
Feedback is welcome, next steps is to put some effort on the various character components.
Sources
Note: due to some bugs in Pleco's handling of radical characters, the dictionary will not actually be searchable for some radical characters yet - this will be corrected in a future update.
iOS Dictionary Installation
iOS Flashcards Installation
Android Dictionary Installation
Android Flashcards Installation
This is basically a dictionary which covers all the radicals and their variants; several components are also included. The data includes meaning, notes, and etymology. Frequency information is included for the KangXi radicals and their variants (this is RANK, higher means more frequent). There is also a note for each character whether there is any point in learning it as a standalone character. The additional radicals from the modern simplified chinese tables are covered where possible, though in some cases these radicals only exist in extension B.
I've now updated this for Pleco 2.0, the updates include:
- A number of new characters, particularly a number of Extension A characters which had been skipped before.
- Notes have been expanded to include how the radical is typically used in characters and the types of characters that will be listed under it.
- A Mnemonic field has been added, in many cases this was just separated from the notes data in the previous release, but this information has been expanded/refined in many cases. While this field is often the technical etymology that can't always be guaranteed.
- Examples have been added as per a request here, chosen to illustrate the most typical uses of a given radical
- There is a new 'Distinguish From' field
- A flashcard list is now included.
Feedback is welcome, next steps is to put some effort on the various character components.
Sources
- Primary Sources:
- Tan Huay Peng's Chinese Radicals
- These are great little books, highly recommended for this topic. Out of print but can still be found in bookstores.
- The Chinese Etymology website
- William Mcnaughton's Reading and Writing Chinese characters
- The Unihan Database
Additional resources include:- Unicode Code page reference docs on http://www.unicode.org
- Modern Chinese Character Frequency List
- I used the radical tables from the old open source version of Hanzi Master as an original source for the rank calculations, updated for my complete radical list
- Cantodict
- This site proved useful for finding the code points of some rare characters
In addition to abovementioned sources all of the dictionaries within Pleco were consulted before writing the definition, a couple verbatim copies came from Unihan or CEdict. I also found component information on a number of sites, I think one of the main resources I used was a variant of the Unihan database somewhere on mandarintools.com. Wenlin was consulted for some component information and some of the etymology updates - Tan Huay Peng's Chinese Radicals
Note: due to some bugs in Pleco's handling of radical characters, the dictionary will not actually be searchable for some radical characters yet - this will be corrected in a future update.
iOS Dictionary Installation
- 1. Make sure some sort of wireless/data connection is enabled on the iOS device.
2. Launch Pleco
3. Click the functions icon on the lower right hand corner of the screen
4. Click Settings
5. Scroll down and select Web Browser
6. Go to plecoforums.com and navigate to this forum thread.
7. Click the link to the "Dictionary Database" file below and save the file to your device.
8. Now go to the 'Manage Dicts' screen under Settings.
9. Tap the 'Add User' button, then "Load Existing", and choose the Radical dictionary.
10. Go back to the dictionary interface in Pleco
11. Go to the C-E dictionary list with ABC, etc
12. Cycle through the dictionaries by clicking on the dictionary icon, the icon is RAD. Alternatively tap and hold the dictionaries icon, select the one called Radicals.
iOS Flashcards Installation
- 1. Repeat steps 1-7 above with the "Flashcard List" file.
2. Go to the "Import Cards" / "Import cards" screen under Flashcards.
3. Tap on "File" under "Choose File" and select the downloaded flashcard list file.
4. Set "Duplicate cards" to "Allow" - this will make sure that your newly imported cards don't link to old definitions from other dictionaries / flashcard lists.
5. Tap on "Begin Import."
Android Dictionary Installation
- 1. Download the Dictionary Database file below.
2. Copy the dictionary .pqb file to your device's SD card. (you can also download it directly to your device)
3. In the main screen of Pleco, press your device's menu button (or the onscreen menu button on Android 4.0), choose "Settings," "Dictionary," "Manage Dictionaries," "Add User," "Load Existing," and select the dictionary file.
Android Flashcards Installation
- 1. Download the Flashcard List file below.
2. Copy the flashcard .txt file to your device's SD card. (you can also download it directly to your device)
3. In the main screen of Pleco, press your device's menu button (or the onscreen menu button on Android 4.0), choose "Flashcards," "Import Cards."
4. Tap "Choose File" and select the flashcard file.
5. Set "Duplicate cards" to "Allow" - this will make sure that your newly imported cards don't link to old definitions from other dictionaries / flashcard lists.
6. Tap on "Begin Import."
and a decent bit of work.