This is a guest post! If you like Japan– or comics– check out my site at I think in comics!

I remember my first day of Japanese class.

The first way I was first taught kanji, as far as I could tell, lacked rhyme or reason. Each week, we’d be given a new set of jumbled lines and strokes and curves to somehow fit together into a coherent character. Now, if you’re anything like me, you find kanji intimidating. Difficult. Hard to memorize.

The reason for this is that we’re taught kanji the same way Japanese grade schoolers are: from simplest meaning to more complex meaning. Which means you’ll learn kanji like

before you learn

Now, this makes absolutely no sense to a college student like me. We’re old. We understand those more complex meanings. Isn’t there a better way to learn kanji?

And there is. One that’s actually logical. One that makes kanji much easier to memorize and understand. And that way is…

Kanji radicals, or “bushu” (部首) are simply kanji sub-units. Most kanji are composed of one or more radicals. Let’s give an example…

In fact, kanji dictionaries are usually organized by radical.

Some radicals are actually kanji themselves that can work alone with their own meaning.

Other radicals are modified forms of stand-alone kanji. In their modified form, they cannot be used alone. What do I mean? Let’s take a look at the character for water:

So that’s fun and all. But what’s the purpose of learning radicals?

Sometimes, when faced with a kanji you don’t know, you can actually discern the general meaning using radicals. It’s a bit like trying to figure out the meaning of an English word by prefixes, suffixes, and root words.

And it can make sense with kanji as well:

But not all English words make sense in terms of prefixes and suffixes. It’s the same with kanji: more often than not, a kanji’s radicals will not connect to the kanji’s actual meaning. I still remember learning the kanji for mizuumi, (みずうみ）or lake:

Water, old, moon? It doesn’t really make much sense.

What’s the point of learning radicals, then? Radicals, as I’ve discovered, work really, really well as a memorization tool. Once you learn the basic radicals, you can use them to build larger characters. You can even come up with fun little mnemonics to help the process.

There are no hard-and-fast rules for memorizing kanji, but radicals are a great way to get started. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t learn about radicals until three years into studying Japanese– and even then, I learned about them from my tutor (yup– sadly, I get tutored) and not in class. But it’s never too late– I’ll definitely be studying more about radicals in the months to come!

And now, some disclaimers:

I’m not a Japanese teacher– I simply had the honor of being invited to write a guest post for Aha! Sensei. If you liked this post, you can check out my site, I think in comics!

I’m no expert, by any means. If you’d like to know more, I’d check out these pages (because I certainly did while writing this post)

The 5 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Learning Kanji

Kanji Radicals

Kanji Facts