These Radicals Make Chinese Easy! [Nature Edition]

Hey everyone! In this video, we will look at 14 very common Chinese radicals that were inspired by nature. Hopefully, they will help you in your Chinese learning journey. Let's get started! The first radical is er, which is also a character on its own and means sun. So, lots of characters that contain er also relate to the sun. For example, mín, which means bright, which means warm, as in 暖和, or shài, which means to sun-dry, or to bask in the sun, often called shài tàiyáng. Er can also carry a secondary meaning, which is day, which is of course connected to the sun. For example, shí, as in shíjiān, means time, chéng, as in zǎochéng, means dawn, and wáng, means late or evening. As you can see, the meaningful radical, in this case er, is usually positioned at the left or at the top of the character. The right part of the character is usually just responsible for how the character is pronounced. Huó is also a standalone character and means fire. It's used in dēng, which means lamp, because oil lamps, for example, used to have actual fire inside them. It's also in both characters of bàozhā, which means to explode, or in xīmié, which means to extinguish a fire. One of the main uses of fire is to cook food, so lots of cooking terms also contain this radical. For example, chǎo, which means to stir-fry, shàokǎo, which is a barbecue, or zhūn, which means to stew, or to cook slowly in a closed pan. Thirdly, huó also appears in many terms relating to heat. For example, zào, as in gānzào, which means dry, róng, which means to melt, or tāng, which means to iron, for example clothes, where the iron used to be heated up using actual fire. Unlike the previous two, this one is a proper radical and cannot occur on its own. It's usually called sìdiāngdǐ, and even though it looks like it could mean water, it actually means fire. So the meanings carried are very similar to the last radical. It can stand for heat, for example in rè, which means warm, zhào, which means to shine, or jiāo, which means burnt. It too appears in terms related to cooking, like zhú, which means to boil, shú, which means something is cooked through or ripe, or pēng, as in pēngrēng, which is the formal term for cooking. As a third meaning, the four dots can also relate to emotions or feelings. For example, rèliè, which means warm, as in rèliè huānyíng, which means warm welcome, or in jiāo, which means to suffer or to live in hardship. Tǔ means earth and can also occur on its own. It can carry the meaning of location, for example in dì, which means ground, cháng, as in guāngcháng, which means place or public square, or also in zhí, as in dìzhí or zhúzhí, which both mean address. Words that have to do with soil also often contain tǔ, like mái, which means to bury, duì, which is a pile, or pēi, as in pēiyán, which means to cultivate. The things that are built on top of the ground also regularly use this radical. For example, in chéng, as in chéngshì, which means city, jiángbì, which is a wall, or fēnmù, which is a grave. Our next radical, mù, is very common and means tree or wood. When used as a radical, it is often on the left side and referred to as mùzipāng. Both characters in the Chinese word for tree branch, shùzhī, have mùzipāng. Sēnglín is a famous example of how some Chinese words just explain themselves. A forest is just a whole bunch of trees, each one represented by mù. It's also in meaning fruit. For example, apple is píngguó. Lots of specific families of plants or trees also include mù. For example, sēngshù is a pine tree, and lǐ and méi refer to pears and plums respectively. But mù does not only occur in things found in nature, but also in what humans made with it. For example, in objects made out of wood. For example, in zhuózi or yízi, which mean table or chair, or in qiǎo, which means bridge. The next radical looks very similar and means grain. When used as a radical, it is often called hémùpāng. It is found in farming-related terms such as zhòng. This character has two different meanings depending on the tone. With a fourth tone, it means to plant, as in zhòngcài, which means to plant vegetables. With a third tone, zhóng, it refers to different types or variants of something. It's also in xiāng, which means fragrant, qiǔ, which means autumn, and in dàosuì, which is the so-called rice ear. That's the top part of a rice plant which contains the actual rice seeds. Farmers used to also pay rent and taxes using the grain they produced, which explains why terms like zhū and shuì also contain As does lì, as in lìyì, which means profit or benefit. The grass radical also cannot occur on its own and is always on top of the character. It's extremely common in all sorts of plants. For example, cǎo as grass, huā as flower, chá as tea, shūcài or vegetables, pútǎo or grapes, and qiézi means eggplant. As a hidden second meaning, it can also signify beauty or elegance. For example, yīng as in which means hero, róng as in guāngróng, meaning glory, or yì as in yìshù, which means art. As I said in my transcription video, it's also frequently used when translating female first names, probably also with this meaning. Qī as a character refers to air, gas, or the vital energy qī. When used as a radical, it mostly signifies gas. With the water radical, which we will get to shortly, it becomes qī meaning steam, as in qīchē, meaning car, because early cars used to run on steam. By far the most common place to find the qī radical, however, is on the periodic table of elements, where every single gas uses this radical. What's under the radical is just the phonetic component, mostly approximating the first syllable of the English name of the element, with a few exceptions. You see five examples of them here. If you want to know more about the characters on the Chinese periodic table, there's a cool video I've linked below. The Chinese character for mountain is shāng. Unsurprisingly, characters that use it as a radical also have to do with mountains. For example, shāngfēng is the mountain's peak. shānglǐng is a mountain ridge. yíng as in yíngshí is a rock. xiā as in xiāgǔ is a gorge or a canyon. yá as a cliff. and dǎo as an island, which I guess some islands are the peak of a mountain that is underwater. Our next radical is shí, often used in shí tóu, which means stone or rock. Words that are semantically related include yīng, which means hard, pò, which means break or broken, and suì, meaning shatter. shí is also used in objects made out of stone, like wáng, which is a bowl, zhuāng is a brick, and bēi is a stone tablet. And thirdly, this radical can also refer to minerals. kuāng, which is an ore or a mine, tàng means carbon, and liúhuāng means sulfur. The latter two are also elements on the periodic table. They are solid non-metals. After the gases and the solids, we now get to the liquids. shuǐ is a character meaning water, and also carries this meaning when used as a radical. bīng means ice, chuǎng is a spring of water, gǒng means mercury, one of only two elements that is liquid at room temperature, pèng is a pump, usually for water, and niào means urine. The actual water radical, on the other hand, is far more commonly used, and is represented by these three dots, sān diǎng shuǐ. It occurs in bodies of water, like hé for river, hú for lake, and hái for ocean. It also occurs in actions related to water, like xí for washing, liú for flowing, yóuyóng for swimming, piāo for floating, dì for dripping, and jiào for watering, as in jiào shuǐ. But that's not all. It's also used in properties that water can have, like qíng for clear water, shēng for deep water, or shí for wet water. It's also used in all manner of fluids. yóu is oil, tāng is soup, zhī is juice, jiǔ is alcohol, hāng is sweat, and yè, as in yè tǐ, just means liquid. Closely related to the previous one is this radical, called liǎng diǎng shuǐ. It also refers to water, but in a frozen state, or just to coldness in general. Léng means cold, liáng, as in liáng kuài, means cool, dòng, as in dòng jié, means to freeze, bīng líng is one of the ways to refer to an icicle, and líng lié means extremely cold. And lastly, we have the character for rain, yú. As a radical, it refers to different kinds of precipitation, or just weather in general. shuǐ, as in xià shuǐ, is to snow, léi, as in dà léi, is to thunder, zhēng means to shake or quake, bǎo, as in bīng bǎo, means hail, lù is dew, the tiny water drops you find on plants in the morning, and its frozen equivalent, frost, is called shuǎng. That's it for this video. I hope you learned something new. Thanks for watching!