I've Made A Chinese Radical Chart With Pictures

[gre]

I spent a month on finding matching pictures with oracle bones, bronze scripts...

Originally I posted it on a facebook group for people who want to learn Cantonese.

However, I want more people see through the beauty of traditional characters, so I

will post the chart on other languages' forum.

http://wp.me/pTA6r-M

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4037/4640743334_af37d0af74_o.jpg

[taijidan]

Good job dude it's a really nice chart.

Would you consider adding an extra column for mandarin pronounciation?

[gre]

Good job dude it's a really nice chart.

Would you consider adding an extra column for mandarin pronounciation?

I just updated my blog to teach people how to look up Mandarin pronunciation.

Just copy and paste. Extremely Easy! ;)

[lordnikon]

just to let you know everything you posted in blocked in china from your blog to the multiupload site you are hosting the pdf on, i had to use proxy to access it, but it does look good so thanks, for anyone else who is having trouble accessing the direct link to the pdf is http://rapidshare.com/files/392498610/chineseradicalfull.pdf

[tooironic]

Just some feedback. You list 巾 as meaning "turban" but AFAIK its more precisely conceived of as any kind of cloth with a specific use. In terms of the picture it tries to convey, Wenlin describes it as a "picture of a handkerchief hanging from a girdle".

You didn't mention that 阝 can occur on both the left and right sides of a character with the meanings of "hill; mound" and "city" (as a form of 邑) respectively.

I'm not really sure why you wrote that 示 means "God", I would have thought "spirits" (as in 神) would have been a bit more accurate, though it is a little complicated. Karlgren explains it thus: "Prognostic, presage; indicate, exhibit, proclaim, declare, inform -- the scholastic commentators explain: 二 (i.e. 上) heaven and (the strokes below:) sun, moon and stars! Occurs as a signific in characters bearing on religion, rites, etc."

I never knew 言 depicted a bell and a tongue. Lindqvist describes it as a "picture of a flute with a mouth blowing into it".

It appears you've got the wrong unicode for the "car" radical as you call it - it should be 車 [8eca (GB+ dc87) (Big5 a8ae)].

Technically speaking, 酉 is not just "wine" but "wine vessel".

Lastly, there are quite a few English typos you might want to fix. Good work though. I can understand why you'd want to keep the etymology simple for the purposes of a chart.

[gre]

tooironic,

Thanks for your advice.

1.I looked up the English of 巾 from http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B7%BE.

I didn't know why I chose turban from a list of words. My bad.

2. About the position of 邑(阝):this project was inspired by a Japanese chart of Kanji radical.

At first, I followed the Japanese categorization, such as grouping 邑 in "left-side element",

eventually I found their grouping doesn't make sense to me so I stopped writing about positions.

3.

I looked up a Japanese kanji book and it said 示 is related to "神"God. (pic attached)

I will make correction.

4. (pic)

I looked up this book and it said 言 meant bell and mouth. I will correct the sentence mistake.

5. (pic)

I have Lindqvist's book in Chinese and it said 西 meant "八月新穀子釀造的酒" (wine that is fermented from new grain from August)

6. I made my pdf on mac os, which has a Chinese radical chart that allows you to choose from and insert it into documents. They have 3 kinds of code - CJK unified, CJK compatibility and Kangxi. I don't know which one creates problem.

[Hofmann]

I remember a few things from when I looked at it...

虫 is pronounced wai2 in Jyutping.

目 is pronounced muk6.

The etymologies, I don't really know/care.

[gre]

I remember a few things from when I looked at it...

虫 is pronounced wai2 in Jyutping.

目 is pronounced muk6.

The etymologies, I don't really know/care.

Fixed.

I re-uploaded the new pdf.

[Altair]

This is a fantastic job! Especially the close match between pictures and the character forms. I would have loved to have had access to this while I was beginning to learn characters. My writing skills, as opposed to recognition skills, are still so abominable that I might still use a few pictures as helpful visualizations.

I'm not really sure why you wrote that 示 means "God", I would have thought "spirits" (as in 神) would have been a bit more accurate, though it is a little complicated. Karlgren explains it thus: "Prognostic, presage; indicate, exhibit, proclaim, declare, inform -- the scholastic commentators explain: 二 (i.e. 上) heaven and (the strokes below:) sun, moon and stars! Occurs as a signific in characters bearing on religion, rites, etc."

Based on Wenlin's explanation, I prefer "altar" as an explanation for 示. The top is the sacrifice, 丁 is the table, and 八 are droplets of blood. This would also match the picture.

You didn't mention that 阝 can occur on both the left and right sides of a character with the meanings of "hill; mound" and "city" (as a form of 邑) respectively.

2. About the position of 邑(阝):this project was inspired by a Japanese chart of Kanji radical.

At first, I followed the Japanese categorization, such as grouping 邑 in "left-side element",

eventually I found their grouping doesn't make sense to me so I stopped writing about positions.

I do not recall seeing this on the chart and sadly no longer have access to the chart on this computer and somehow cannot make the links work.

I can see why ignoring positioning for most character elements might be simpler;however, I think it is important in this case, because the meanings are different. On the left, (阝x) is 阜 (earthen hill). On the right, (x阝)is 邑 (town/city). Knowing the difference has helped me to explain and memorize many characters.

For 斤, I think an easy explanation for the link between form and meaning is that it represents an axe head used as a measure of weight.

For 斗, I would give too alternate explanations: a dipper （北斗星) with a long handle or ten ladlefuls of liquid （十勺液体）.

[gre]

Altair,

Thanks for you advice.

I just added 邑 into my chart and added warnings of the positions of 邑 and 阜.

http://img.skitch.com/20100530-xudb8rn7jbf19f28f923t9h3t.jpg

The picture does not match well. I will try to capture TV scene with people kneeling down near city wall.