To look for a word in dictionary, you need to know the radical. Some is pretty easy to guess, some is not. Radicals are used to group characters which are useful for dictionary purposes, for one thing. Some are easily guessed than others.
For example:
Characters that have radicals of 女 are 妈, 好, etc.
Characters that have radicals of 亻 are 你, 他, etc.
For example, one wants to check the word 你 in a dictionary. How to do it?
2. The steps:
Say one wants to check the word 你 in the Chinese dictionary. This is how to do it.
1. Check the radical, in this case 亻 which is at number 19
2. Find the derivatives: Since the radical is at number 19, that means we need to check the group 19 of derivatives. Find the character and get the pinyin, nǐ.
Blown picture:
3. Open the dictionary to check “nǐ”.
The pictures are taken from dictionary published by OXFORD University Press.
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