Resources about Kanji Structure

Japanese
#1

I want some resources to learn about kanji in “official” manner. I mean, there’s a bunch of resources about learning mnemonics and made-up radicals, with tips and shortcuts for learning “quicker” and “easier”. Searching for resources mostly led to me finding those…

That’s not what I want exactly, I want to learn all of the “official” radicals, their classification, brief etimology, meanings, what they do when placed on a Kanji (how they affect pronunciation or meaning); structure of Kanji as a whole, stroke order, and other things I may not be aware to mention. I don’t need a big list on the etimology on every single Kanji, but things and patterns that affect all, or most of them.

I’m not much of a linguistics guy, so it doesn’t need to be excessively deep in information, preferably a free resource like a website, but if it’s books or something else, it’s okay.

I want more deeper awareness about Kanji and how they are made as a whole, i believe this kind of study is worthwhile since they seem to have a lot of patterns that can help on memorization of their differences, pronunciation and meaning.

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#2

I have some ideas as this is something I have an interest in it personally. Before I bombard you with information can I ask if it is okay if the resources are in Japanese or if English is preferable? I can obviously provide both and you can pick through them!

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#3

I can’t read Japanese yet, specially dense materials so I need it to be English…

But if you want to share the Japanese ones as well, for other interested people (or even myself in the long future :bowing_man:), please go ahead!

#4

Also, slightly unrelated, if there’s any resources about the structure of words using Kanji, please share as well.

I think there’s some patterns on word formation as well (things like “using kanji X on the left can negate the meaning of the kanji on the right” or “this gives an abstract meaning instead of literal meaning to the word”), but I don’t know much about it, and how it relates to their Chinese origins.

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#5

@CursedKitsune I would love resources in both English and Japanese, thank you for offering to do this!

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#6

You could read the wikitionary entries ex 誰 - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
From 誰 you can click the link to 隹 and see the bird pictogram.

While it is an “RTK” equvilent. kanji damage does have some of the information you are looking for.

“If a radical is “strong” it is the pronunciation of the bigger kanji.
If a radical is “symbolic” it is the meaning of the bigger kanji
One more thing: SYMBOLIC RADICALS are usually on the left side, STRONG RADICALS are usually located on the right side of a kanji. So if you are stumped by a new (or, heh, forgotten) kanji, check the right-side radical for clues to its on-yomi. And check the left-side radical for clues to its meaning.”

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#7

To go on a bit more about this point, semantic-phonetic composition (形声) is very important, much more important than knowing all the original radicals (at least for comprehension of the actual kanji).

The semantic part (often on the left), is usually the radical of kanji which are of this type. However the phonetic part, which is just as important is usually not a radical, so if you just concentrate on classical radicals you will miss a lot of information; which is why you should also consider a more broad idea of what a radical, or a “consituent part” of a kanji is.

For example take the series of kanji:
工 - construction
江 - creek (semantic on the left: water)
紅 - crimson (semantic on the left: thread/textile)
虹 - rainbow (semantic on the left: insect??)
功 - achieve, success (semantic on the right: power/ability)

All of these are read the same (こう), which is indicated by the presence of the 工 phonetic (功 is somewhat of an outlier, because the phonetic part is on the left, but I would still consider it 形声).

I am still regularly learning new kanji in a structured way, and I can skip thinking about half to 2/3rds of the onyomi, simply because you can infer it by this kind of rule.

Almost all of these kanji have the semantic component on the left, and the phonetic component on the right.
(One exception of a phonetic which is always on the left is 芻 (すう), occuring in 芻, 雛 and 鄒; and a semantic which occurs on the right only is the one occuring in the last kanji of these, the large village/building radical - if someone knows another phonetic only ever occuring on the left, I’d be interested :slight_smile: )

One caveat is that one phonetic might indicate more than one reading, or that the reading used to be according to the phonetic, but it has changed over time. (also two on’yomi might’ve been borrowed from China at different times, f.e. 経 being read けい (Tang dynasty borrowing) and きょう (earlier borrowing, thus mainly read this way in Buddhist words like 経典 (きょうてん) - sutra, scripture))

For example consider the phonetic 乍, occurring f.e. in
作 - make (さく, さ)
昨 - yesterday (さく)
詐 - deceive (さ)
酢 - vinegar (さく)

You can see that this phonetic is both read さ and さく, and you’ll have to remember which is which.
More information about 形声文字 can be found on the following sites:

形声文字 - Kanji with a semantic and phonetic component - Morg Systems (also has a lot of other blog posts about kanji topics)
https://archive.is/f4ww4 (article by the Nanbanjin Nikki linked in the blog post above, has great information about phonetic series, which one to learn and so on - the links of that article seem to be dead though)

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#8

This will get you really far, but make sure that you look through the Chinese and Translingual sections as well they always have the best information. I read these daily.

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#9

I think you may be getting too far into the weeds without it having as much benefit as you might think.

I certainly did this, and got almost every Kanji resource I could find…

If you just love kanji, then dive in!
but if your goal is to learn the language I wouldn’t put too much into super deep dives.

I invested or planned on spending significant time and energy on what I thought was a super logical system.

But honestly, while there are some with super obvious patterns and logic, most of them barely make sense.

What is true is using the phonetic component (as mentioned) as a helper for the word without knowing the full meaning or its full back story.

I’m in for near 1,000 and add 6-8 per day.

This means THOUSANDS of word combinations that would be impossibly time consuming to go beyond the surface (at least initially)

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#10

That is just it though, as you look into the history of the characters there is a more logical system underneath. Those systems have just eroded over time, similar to English. Learning how Latin and Greek roots affects English is a boon to learners, and I think it is symmetrical to Japanese and Kanji.

#11

If you’re really into it as more of a etymology standpoint then I understand the interest, and there’s tons of great things to learn.

but with all my resources I have, the thing I use most is a simple JLPT kanji jisho and Jisho.org…

I reccomend the book “The complete guide to Japanese Kanji” as it has much of what you seem interested in.

It is also on LibGen if you want to just check it out but I’m not sure on the rules about sharing links there.

You have kanji like " 湯" Which is “Hot Water” and according to the book is the mix of the radical on the left for water, and the base is “Sun shining on high” which in turn is a mix of “Sun” and “Rays”

and you’re like oh cool a system!

But then some are like “oh it looks like a man and something about a snake…” that means Cary… (they go into more detail obv) but I find I’m more in the weeds of it.

like why 暑い and 水 arent really anywhere in 湯. And I get frustrated in trying to make the old ancient systems more obvious or work, and less time in just fully understanding that 湯 just means hot water and moving on…

#12

But 湯 literally has 氵which means water. And 昜 is the onbun that gives the よう reading. Also 昜 is means the rays of the sun, as in light. So it’s pretty natural that there is a metaphorical extension of the meaning of heat.

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#13

Don’t worry, I see a lot of people in the internet obcessed with Kanji so much that they ignore the whole language beside it for months or years, and I don’t plan to get not even close to this obcession.

Going by the premises on the book cover, this doesn’t seem like what i want personally. As i said before, I don’t want a big list with the etimologies/mnemonics/meanings for every single kanji, but things that affect “all of them” on a more structured level, or should I say, patterns.

Getting intimate with ~200 radicals (or even only the most common) is a lot more manageable than all +2000 kanji using them. At the least I can profit from phonetic composition like @Kialandri said, at most, help desambiguate between similar Kanji and guess the meaning of a Kanji.

Studying Kanji structure may have more benefits I don’t know as well, that’s why I came to ask for good resources on it.

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#14

To reiterate again: I think learning about the “traditional” radicals has limited merit, unless you are going to use a radical-based kanji lookup, and even in that case it’s sometimes unclear which is the “proper” radical of a given kanji.

Learning about phonetic-semantic composition on the other hand is really really really helpful with on’yomi and (to some extent) the meaning of the kanji as well.

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#15

Right the key is while radicals as they are called came from a need to organize into a dictionary rather than true etymology. I would suggest you familiarize yourself with the most common semantic components and learn the sound components as you go. Traditional radicals include stuff like 龜 which are not super useful haha.

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#16

I use the information provided in the “Kanji Study” app. This app has information about the kanji components (sound and meaning), and it has information about how the meaning and the writing has changed over time.
Take 湯 as an example. The app has a picture showing ancient forms of both 氵and 昜, as well as how the meaning of 昜 has changed over time.
Since this is an app and not a book, it’s also easy to look up all the Kanji that include a given component, which helps compare their meanings and/or readings.

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#17

To learn the kanji radicals, I recommend these 3 short videos which cover 60 radicals each for a total of 180 radicals. You can find them here https://youtu.be/J1iQUL_IF-A and here Know Your Kanji Radicals - Part 1 | 30 Days of Kanji

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