Is it necessary to remember the chinese names of radicals?

[Quakebum]

I started to learn Chinese again this year, but I've been having a hard time with memorizing, so right now I'm learning the radicals so I could construct little stories based on the radicals (suggestion by Tuttle).

Do I need to remember the Chinese names of each radical or is remembering the English name enough?

The English names were easy for me, but I've been having a really hard time remembering the Chinese names because somem make no sense. I already have a basic vocabulary because I'm Chinese born, but can't write or read.

For instance the radical 犭is dog in English, but the Chinese name is quan3 which I've never heard over before. I know dog as gou3.

Am I wasting time memorizing the Chinese names of the radicals? Under what situations is remembering the Chinese names useful?

On an older thread, someone mentioned that I really only need to start off with 50 common radicals, what are they?

Is there a table of radicals most commonly used? I did find the website with most commonly used words, but what about radicals?

Thanks

[feihong]

I do think it is a good idea to know the radicals but I think remembering their Chinese names is overkill.

I also recommend that you learn radicals in conjunction with the characters, and not worry too much about the radicals by themselves. That is, start by learning the 300 most frequent Chinese characters, then use a resource like Chinese Character Etymology to break down the characters into their constituent radicals.

[renzhe]

quan3 stands for 犬, which is an older word for dog.

Personally, I think that you'll pick up the Chinese names for the important radicals along the way, and that memorising them just for the sake of memorising them does not make much sense.

The names of radicals are useful for describing characters to somebody else during conversation, but that's not the priority when starting.

[abcdefg]

Do I need to remember the Chinese names of each radical or is remembering the English name enough?

A dissenting opinion here, and I’m not very academic. If you are talking about radicals with your teacher or even with yourself, you have to call them something. Why not learn to call them by their Chinese names from the get go? Is it really all that much harder?

It will make life easier later when you want to make it clear to someone which one of several similar sounding words you mean. I’m not saying you should sit down with a long list of radicals and powergrind them into your brain; but as you learn a new radical in connection with some words in which it is used, why not learn the Chinese name of the radical too.

I will agree that it's not top priority.

However I remember not all that long ago when I was a raw beginner getting so angry at one of my teachers for not just taking the trouble to use some very basic words every day in the course of other classwork. I could have picked up "chair, table, pencil, notebook" and a handfull of others painlessly, "for free," just by repititious exposure.

The Chinese names of the radicals are somewhat analagous to that. Call 口 a "kou" several hundred times in the course of learning words instead of a "little mouth" and you will have picked up something *incidentally* that will be useful down the road.

[jbradfor]

I like abcdefg's answer. Use the Chinese names whenever possible, and pay attention to their names, but don't go out of your way to memorize them.

[doraemon]

I think that by knowing them, you'll be able to tell other people how to write a certain Chinese word verbally as well as being able to understand their instructions, so in that respect it is quite useful. But then again, as long as you know how to write/recognise the words not knowing the names of the radicals wouldn't impact too much.

[Caidanbi]

Hmm, when I was learning Chinese my teacher actually never taught me their names! I think as long as you know what the radicals are, what they are called isn't super important. I have never actually come across a situation where I need to know what they were called, but I think it can't hurt to learn some of them, just in case ^-^

[Guest realmayo]

You could consider this: find a list of the most common characters (200? 500?) and also a list of all the radicals

For each character:

- look up its meaning (just quickly, no need to learn it);

- write the character down (if you know how stroke order works -- if not, plenty of websites should be able to tell you);

- work out (or look up) what its radical is (again, no need to memorise this or anything);

- in your list of radicals, put a tick next to the relevant radical.

By the end, you'll be able to work out yourself what the most common radicals are, at least for learning the first batch of characters.

You'll also have got familiar with how the radicals work, and what meaning they tend to give to a character.

With that background knowledge, I think the hard work of real learning and memorisation becomes easier -- because you are able to piece things together better, make links and conclusions in your head.

[jbradfor]

@Quakebum, in case you (or anyone else) does want to memorize the Chinese names of radicals, here's a word list with the names of some of the most common radical names: radicals.txt

Source: here, in the post by edelweis

Note: the formatting is a bit off. The simplified (second data field) is not, and yes I know it should be "er", not "r". You can fix if you like.

[Gharial]

A general tip: Radicals that can stand as independent characters (ICs e.g. 十 卜 八 儿 ) can, when appearing as part of another character, at a pinch be described by the formula Pinyin of IC+zì+position in other character (usually 旁 páng, 'side', but can be 头 tóu, 'top', or 底 dǐ, 'base'). So 十 卜 and 八 could be generally described as shí/bǔ/bāzìpáng, but 儿 can only really be described as some sort of dǐ (because it only appears when a radical as the base part of other characters). Take a look at e.g. http://www.nciku.com/search/radical?strokes=2 .

Those radicals that on the other hand can't be independent characters in themselves (i.e. that can only serve as components in other characters) usually have a quite idiomatic and colloquial name (or indeed several such possible names!) to describe them. For example, 亠 can be called wénzìtóu (文字头, "wén's top"), yīdiǎn-yīhéng (一点一横), or (according to nciku) diǎnhéngtóur (点横头儿) - take your pick!

As others have said, if you are discussing the radicals with Chinese speakers, or describing characters over the phone or whatever, then you need to be able to call the radicals and other character components something. But other advantages of learning more about the radicals generally are:

-you can increase your vocabulary somewhat (that quan versus gou for dog)

-you can learn more about the position that graphic variants can and do take

-you can become more familiar with various classificatory schemes (e.g. CASS versus Kangxi indexing)

You might find the gifs that I posted here of interest (note especially the asterisked footnote at the bottom of each gif):

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/31003-guide-to-simplified-radicals/

[BirdRockster]

Its not necessary unless you are planning to further your study, such as getting a Masters or PhD. Recognizing the radicals is more important than their names, as you can sometimes deduce a meaning from a character based on its radicals.

[xiaoxiannu]

This post is over a year old, but I just wanted to add that knowing radical names in Chinese also helps in memorizing more Chinese words. This is in hindsight after learning only a few years of Chinese as a child. My child is now also learning Chinese and knowing the names has helped me in helping her. She is learning radical names in English, but I try to remind her the words in Chinese. Here are just examples of how I retain my limited Chinese.

In regards to the 犬 radical, I don't recognize the character; but when I was growing up, I always heard lang2quan3（狼犬） for the German Shepherd Dog. So I have associated quan3 as dog related. I may not recognize 犬, but if I see ever see 狗, I might then be able to say gou3 and quan3, instead of gou3 and dog. Also for listening conversations, quan3 can help me hone in on what people talk about. When I overhear people conversing about huang2jin1gou3 (黃金狗) and then hear quan3 and lang2, chances are they are talking about Golden Retrievers and wild dogs of some sort. If you know that ye3lang2 is wolf, then you've just learned ye3(wild), lang2(wolf), quan3 (dog) and gou3 (dog). Your listening vocabulary has just expanded：狼犬(German Shepherd),野狼(wolf),野狗(feral dog).

Also, some radicals are words as themselves. Like 寸cun4. If you learn inch as the name for the radical, then if you learn the Chinese pronunciation, you have expanded your vocabulary again. For instance, 對dui4 has the 寸 radical. You can use this to help remember how to write dui4. Since dui4 rhymes with cun4, you have a better chance at being able to write or read by going dui4 cun4. (correct measurement).

Another radical is 巾jin1, in 老師 的 師. If you know the radical name is cloth, then knowing how to say it in Chinese can expand more words, like mao2jin1 (towel), and wei2jin1 (scarf).

There are more examples I can think of having benefits from knowing how to say the radicals in Chinese, but due to time constraints I leave a last example of how knowing radicals in Chinese helps me with many stroked characters.

For 聽ting1 (listen), even though I can read it and type it out on the computer, I hardly write the word. To help me remember how to write the word for my daughter, I will break the word down to things I recognize. This is what goes on in my head: Write the ear radical. "Ting1 guo2wang2"(For the bottom strokes). Jia1(For the top upper right). Write what I need to write. "Yong4 xin1 ting1(Finish the last 5 strokes)". I find the rhyming words from er3, wang2, jia1, xin1, ting1 easier than English ear, king, add, heart, listen to help me finish the character.

In essence, it's not really a necessity that one learns the radical names, but since there are words in Chinese that use the radical as words themselves, I think it would be beneficial to recognize them as you learn especially for later on. Like if you learn gold, tongue, opening, later on you will bound to see them as characters read as jin1, she2, kou3. This can just save you some time having to 'relearn'.

Basically what abcdefg said in the earlier posts.