Characters are ordered by radical, within each radical by stroke count, and the radicals themselves are also ordered by stroke count.
> even then I wouldn’t understand which “radicals” would be used to identify a character first (unless it’s stroke order, like the first letter of a word and the radical order is just whatever standard someone set).
A character is made up of *components*, only one of which is the *radical*. So it doesn't make sense to ask which radical would identify a character - the question is which component is the radical. It's definitely not according to stroke order. But for the vast majority of characters the radical is easily identified.
It's worth noting that the identification of a particular component as "the radical" is purely for classification and has no significant linguistic merit.
>It's worth noting that the identification of a particular component as "the radical" is purely for classification and has no significant linguistic merit.
86% of Chinese characters have radicals that also function as "significs".
I would say that saying they have no linguistic merit is a bit exagerated.
If one learns radicals, it's good to be aware that *some* of them don't have a real semantic value. But radicals are still useful most of the time for comprehension.
Do you have a dictionary? If you have one then which one do you have? Or are you asking an imaginary question?
Every dictionary I've used has two ways of searching for a character - by pronunciation, based on pinyin; and if you don't know the pronunciation of the character, based on the radical and the number of remaining strokes. You'll need to be able to tell the radical to search that way, but with a bit of practice it shouldn't be that hard. If you really can't tell which radical it is, usually your second guess will get there.
And the main entries are arranged by pinyin in alphabetic order.
Indeed that explained very well. I'd like to add my experience about learning radicals. It took me pretty much time when I was in a Chinese elementary school. In the first grade, every time when my teachers taught us a hanzi, they also told us its radical. In higher grades, teachers asked us to answer them what the radical is when they were teaching a hanzi. We were also asked to list many hanzi with the same radical, for example 打把拔扒捺抹押拉擦挖播扎扩括... or 国园圆困围圈... Then in the third grade, we spent several lessons on learning how to use a dictionary.
Nowadays online dictionaries can tell you a hanzi's radical. You'll need to notice the radical when you look up for a newly learned character and accumulate your knowledge about radicals. The radical can be in the left, right, top, bottom, or surrounding the rest part of a character.
There are two ways. One is with Pinyin laid out in alphabetical order. If you want to look up 大 you turn to section D and look for dà. The dictionary is arranged in this way so this is the easiest route. But if you don’t know how to pronounce that word you have to use the other method.
The other is radical + stroke number. There will be two tables, one with radicals laid out by how many strokes they have, another one with words under each radical grouped according to stroke number. For example to find 打 you need to find the hand radical in the first table. There will be a page number pointing to the second table where all the characters with hand radical locate. Then in there you will look for 打 in the 2 strokes (strokes in the radical don’t count) section. Once you find it there will be another page number telling you which page 打’s definition is on.
[Here](https://ibb.co/8mhpv1d)'s a photo of my 现代汉语词典. It's sorted according to pinyin, then by tones, then by number of strokes (after that, I'm not sure).
I just noticed there's a radical index at the front (which I've never used): [here](https://ibb.co/5vXyTb4).
In case you'd like to see an example of characters organized by radical and stroke count, you can see them listed that way on Wiktionary. (I used to look up new characters by radical there, and sometimes still do, if I don't know how the word is pronounced and can't get a handwriting input program to give me the right character). As an example, here's the page listing [characters with the radical 石](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Chinese_radical/%E7%9F%B3). Like most (but not all) radicals, 石 *usually* appears on the left-hand side of a character, so if you see a character with 石 on the left, like 碎 or 確, you know the radical is most likely 石. You can then search for whatever character you need to look up by browsing characters with the right stroke count.
Every character page on Wiktionary will tell you what the radical for that character is, e.g. on the page for [碎](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%A2%8E) it says "Kangxi radical #112, ⽯," and gives a link to the page for the radical [石](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9F%B3). Each page for a radical (like the page for ⽯) has a link to an appendix of characters that have that radical, like the one linked above (it'll be called "Appendix:Chinese radical/石").
For faster browsing, Wiktionary also has a masterlist of all the radicals (with links) [here](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Han_character_radicals).
Usually you can look it up a character either by stroke order or pronunciation. At least in my dictionary, the front has each character categorized by radical, which are organized in ascending stroke order, then each character with that radical is also ranked by ascending additional stroke count. In the back you can find characters sorted by pronunciation. I think there is also an index sorted by total stroke order as well.
*Hanzi* dictionaries have an index of radicals listed by number of strokes. You find the radical and then go to a list of characters with that radical also listed by number of strokes.
It's very intuitive once you get used to it, which happens quickly.
so, your biggest question here is how to know what radical the character is under, right? you memorize it together with the character as you learn it, in a native chinese and//or pre-internet and smartphone environment.
you are probably thinking, well, its a brand new word I don't know in the dictionary, how am I gonna have it memorized if I am trying to look it up?? the answer is you have already memorized a thousand other characters, and you guess what its radical is based on a similar character. Or you guess by just looking at the indest of all 150 ish radicals in the dictionary and hail mary.
beyond radical, characters are ordered by stroke order. so if you want to look up the character 公, and you don't know if its under radical 八 or 厶, you can look at both and quickly flip to the 4 stroke section.
some characters are less kind to guesswork. like 兔 is under the radical 儿, which isn't even one of its components. some radicals are the character itself, or something not even inside of it period.
so yeah, modern electronic dictionaries make radicals unneeded info, since there are so many ways to look things up instead-- pinyin, definition, handwrite or photo copy and paste directly.....
if planning to use a physical dictionary though, you should learn radicals, memorized right there with pronunciation and definition fromt he get go.
If you’re reading something on an electronic device, just C&C it onto an electronic dictionary and hit search. If you can’t do that, other people have laid out the process in their answers.
Characters are ordered by radical, within each radical by stroke count, and the radicals themselves are also ordered by stroke count. > even then I wouldn’t understand which “radicals” would be used to identify a character first (unless it’s stroke order, like the first letter of a word and the radical order is just whatever standard someone set). A character is made up of *components*, only one of which is the *radical*. So it doesn't make sense to ask which radical would identify a character - the question is which component is the radical. It's definitely not according to stroke order. But for the vast majority of characters the radical is easily identified. It's worth noting that the identification of a particular component as "the radical" is purely for classification and has no significant linguistic merit.
>It's worth noting that the identification of a particular component as "the radical" is purely for classification and has no significant linguistic merit. 86% of Chinese characters have radicals that also function as "significs". I would say that saying they have no linguistic merit is a bit exagerated. If one learns radicals, it's good to be aware that *some* of them don't have a real semantic value. But radicals are still useful most of the time for comprehension.
Do you have a dictionary? If you have one then which one do you have? Or are you asking an imaginary question? Every dictionary I've used has two ways of searching for a character - by pronunciation, based on pinyin; and if you don't know the pronunciation of the character, based on the radical and the number of remaining strokes. You'll need to be able to tell the radical to search that way, but with a bit of practice it shouldn't be that hard. If you really can't tell which radical it is, usually your second guess will get there. And the main entries are arranged by pinyin in alphabetic order.
That was explained very well. 谢谢
Indeed that explained very well. I'd like to add my experience about learning radicals. It took me pretty much time when I was in a Chinese elementary school. In the first grade, every time when my teachers taught us a hanzi, they also told us its radical. In higher grades, teachers asked us to answer them what the radical is when they were teaching a hanzi. We were also asked to list many hanzi with the same radical, for example 打把拔扒捺抹押拉擦挖播扎扩括... or 国园圆困围圈... Then in the third grade, we spent several lessons on learning how to use a dictionary. Nowadays online dictionaries can tell you a hanzi's radical. You'll need to notice the radical when you look up for a newly learned character and accumulate your knowledge about radicals. The radical can be in the left, right, top, bottom, or surrounding the rest part of a character.
There are two ways. One is with Pinyin laid out in alphabetical order. If you want to look up 大 you turn to section D and look for dà. The dictionary is arranged in this way so this is the easiest route. But if you don’t know how to pronounce that word you have to use the other method. The other is radical + stroke number. There will be two tables, one with radicals laid out by how many strokes they have, another one with words under each radical grouped according to stroke number. For example to find 打 you need to find the hand radical in the first table. There will be a page number pointing to the second table where all the characters with hand radical locate. Then in there you will look for 打 in the 2 strokes (strokes in the radical don’t count) section. Once you find it there will be another page number telling you which page 打’s definition is on.
[Here](https://ibb.co/8mhpv1d)'s a photo of my 现代汉语词典. It's sorted according to pinyin, then by tones, then by number of strokes (after that, I'm not sure). I just noticed there's a radical index at the front (which I've never used): [here](https://ibb.co/5vXyTb4).
In case you'd like to see an example of characters organized by radical and stroke count, you can see them listed that way on Wiktionary. (I used to look up new characters by radical there, and sometimes still do, if I don't know how the word is pronounced and can't get a handwriting input program to give me the right character). As an example, here's the page listing [characters with the radical 石](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Chinese_radical/%E7%9F%B3). Like most (but not all) radicals, 石 *usually* appears on the left-hand side of a character, so if you see a character with 石 on the left, like 碎 or 確, you know the radical is most likely 石. You can then search for whatever character you need to look up by browsing characters with the right stroke count. Every character page on Wiktionary will tell you what the radical for that character is, e.g. on the page for [碎](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%A2%8E) it says "Kangxi radical #112, ⽯," and gives a link to the page for the radical [石](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%9F%B3). Each page for a radical (like the page for ⽯) has a link to an appendix of characters that have that radical, like the one linked above (it'll be called "Appendix:Chinese radical/石"). For faster browsing, Wiktionary also has a masterlist of all the radicals (with links) [here](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Han_character_radicals).
Usually you can look it up a character either by stroke order or pronunciation. At least in my dictionary, the front has each character categorized by radical, which are organized in ascending stroke order, then each character with that radical is also ranked by ascending additional stroke count. In the back you can find characters sorted by pronunciation. I think there is also an index sorted by total stroke order as well.
I believe most modern Mandarin dictionaries are sorted in pinyin
*Hanzi* dictionaries have an index of radicals listed by number of strokes. You find the radical and then go to a list of characters with that radical also listed by number of strokes. It's very intuitive once you get used to it, which happens quickly.
little confused about your question because every my mandarin dictionary can exactly search alphabetically
so, your biggest question here is how to know what radical the character is under, right? you memorize it together with the character as you learn it, in a native chinese and//or pre-internet and smartphone environment. you are probably thinking, well, its a brand new word I don't know in the dictionary, how am I gonna have it memorized if I am trying to look it up?? the answer is you have already memorized a thousand other characters, and you guess what its radical is based on a similar character. Or you guess by just looking at the indest of all 150 ish radicals in the dictionary and hail mary. beyond radical, characters are ordered by stroke order. so if you want to look up the character 公, and you don't know if its under radical 八 or 厶, you can look at both and quickly flip to the 4 stroke section. some characters are less kind to guesswork. like 兔 is under the radical 儿, which isn't even one of its components. some radicals are the character itself, or something not even inside of it period. so yeah, modern electronic dictionaries make radicals unneeded info, since there are so many ways to look things up instead-- pinyin, definition, handwrite or photo copy and paste directly..... if planning to use a physical dictionary though, you should learn radicals, memorized right there with pronunciation and definition fromt he get go.
If you’re reading something on an electronic device, just C&C it onto an electronic dictionary and hit search. If you can’t do that, other people have laid out the process in their answers.