![]() ![]() Of course, each character is only sorted by one of its components, and this component is called the radical. By sorting characters according to their component parts, it’s possible to compile a dictionary that is not based on pronunciation and let’s you look up any character you want. This is where the term radical comes in (部首 in Chinese). How did people look up characters without relying on pronunciation? How to look up Chinese characters in paper dictionaries: The good old days Modern paper dictionaries often contain look-up tables based on pronunciation, and many dictionaries are indeed sorted by pronunciation today, but that only helps you if you already know how the character is pronounced! Clearly, another way is needed. The building blocks of Chinese, part 1: Chinese characters and words in a nutshell If you want to read or listen to a thorough explanation of how this works, I suggest you check out this series about the building blocks of Chinese: Characters can be pronounced, of course, but what about characters that have multiple readings? And since the pronunciation often can’t be predicted from the written form of the character, how do you look up a Chinese character if you don’t know or have forgotten how it’s pronounced? These problems arise because Chinese characters are only partly about sound. That doesn’t work as well for Chinese, however. In languages with alphabets, this is not very complicated, because all you need to is list the words according to how they are spelt. The need to compile dictionaries and look things up in them has of course existed since writing systems were invented. Why it’s tricky to sort Chinese characters in dictionaries If you’re looking for specific dictionaries, please check this article:Ģ1 essential dictionaries and corpora for learning Chinese Tune in to the Hacking Chinese Podcast to listen to the related episode:Īvailable on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, Overcast, Spotify and many other platforms! Most people use a combination of theses, so my goal here is to give you toolbox you can rely on whenever you want to look up a Chinese character you don’t know. In this article, I will focus on various ways of looking up Chinese characters, along with their pros and cons for students. These questions are related, because if you can get a digital representation of the unknown character, searching for the character online becomes trivial. As soon as students realise that Chinese script is not an alphabet, and that there are thousands of characters they need to learn to become literate, one of the most common questions from beginners is how to look up Chinese characters you don’t know.Ī related question common to hear both from beginners and from people who don’t study Chinese at all is how characters are typed on computer and phones, which I’ve explored in great detail in another article.Ĭhinese input methods: A guide for second language learners
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