Comments on: Kickstart your Chinese character learning with the 100 most common radicals https://www.hackingchinese.com/kickstart-your-character-learning-with-the-100-most-common-radicals/ A better way of learning Mandarin Mon, 03 Nov 2025 17:41:48 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Olle Linge https://www.hackingchinese.com/kickstart-your-character-learning-with-the-100-most-common-radicals/#comment-142621 Mon, 03 Nov 2025 17:41:48 +0000 http://www.hackingchinese.com/?p=2839#comment-142621 In reply to Taha.

You need to look it up! There are principles for stroke order, and after learning maybe a hundred characters or so, it will start becoming much easier, but you still have to look it up to be sure. I collected great resources for stroke order here: All the resources you need to learn and teach Chinese stroke order.

]]> By: Taha https://www.hackingchinese.com/kickstart-your-character-learning-with-the-100-most-common-radicals/#comment-142612 Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:49:09 +0000 http://www.hackingchinese.com/?p=2839#comment-142612 hi, nice work. How do you determine the stroke order , thanks

]]> By: Olle Linge https://www.hackingchinese.com/kickstart-your-character-learning-with-the-100-most-common-radicals/#comment-136277 Wed, 09 Jul 2025 21:08:35 +0000 http://www.hackingchinese.com/?p=2839#comment-136277 In reply to Lachy.

No, but I bet that all of them appear quite early. If you could describe what you would use it for, that might help. You can safely learn all the components here. Most of them are both important stand-alone characters and important components.

]]> By: Lachy https://www.hackingchinese.com/kickstart-your-character-learning-with-the-100-most-common-radicals/#comment-136200 Wed, 09 Jul 2025 01:23:54 +0000 http://www.hackingchinese.com/?p=2839#comment-136200 Beautiful! Big question, do you happen to have a list saying what HSK number (based on 2.0) they first appear in?

]]> By: Olle Linge https://www.hackingchinese.com/kickstart-your-character-learning-with-the-100-most-common-radicals/#comment-136163 Tue, 08 Jul 2025 12:35:17 +0000 http://www.hackingchinese.com/?p=2839#comment-136163 In reply to Lachy.

Hi Lachy! Yes, it’s ordered according to importance/frequency, with the most useful components first!

]]> By: Lachy https://www.hackingchinese.com/kickstart-your-character-learning-with-the-100-most-common-radicals/#comment-136161 Tue, 08 Jul 2025 12:04:16 +0000 http://www.hackingchinese.com/?p=2839#comment-136161 Hi,
Amazing work.
Is the list some what ordered in the closer to the top they are, the more frequent/important the are to learn?
Thanks,
Lachy.

]]> By: The building blocks of Chinese: Characters, components, radicals | Hacking Chinese https://www.hackingchinese.com/kickstart-your-character-learning-with-the-100-most-common-radicals/#comment-135564 Thu, 03 Jul 2025 02:29:23 +0000 http://www.hackingchinese.com/?p=2839#comment-135564 […] In order to help you learn the most common radicals, I have created a list with 100 essential ones all students should learn: Kickstart your Chinese character learning with the 100 most common radicals. […]

]]> By: Olle Linge https://www.hackingchinese.com/kickstart-your-character-learning-with-the-100-most-common-radicals/#comment-134899 Wed, 25 Jun 2025 04:59:57 +0000 http://www.hackingchinese.com/?p=2839#comment-134899 In reply to Ben.

Good catch! The analysis here was done too long ago for be to be able to trace what happened, but the point I was trying to illustrate is still true, namely that if you look at other lists of the most common radicals (all that I could find when this list was made), they are typically not based on characters that students actually want to learn, but instead the whole set of characters in a certain dictionary (usually a very large number of characters, many tens of thousands at least). This list is due for an update and I’ll make sure to either fix the issue or update the list so it’s correct. Thanks!

From a practical point of view, learning 鸟 is fine. You can see, however, that the characters it’s included in aren’t the most common (albeit still characters most students will encounter):

鸦 #2397
鸣 #1680
鸭 #2133
岛 #798
鸡 #1391

Since 鸟 is also quite common as a stand-alone character, it’s safe to learn early on!

]]> By: Ben https://www.hackingchinese.com/kickstart-your-character-learning-with-the-100-most-common-radicals/#comment-134897 Wed, 25 Jun 2025 03:36:58 +0000 http://www.hackingchinese.com/?p=2839#comment-134897 Thanks for the great info. I’m confused. You state that the radical for bird only shows up 9 times in the most common 2,000 characters and therefore the radical for bird doesn’t make the top 100 list. However, the radical for bird then shows up in your top 100 radicals list. Should bird be on the list or not?

]]> By: The three factors that determine how much Chinese you learn | Hacking Chinese | Hacking Chinese https://www.hackingchinese.com/kickstart-your-character-learning-with-the-100-most-common-radicals/#comment-120254 Sat, 25 May 2024 13:08:26 +0000 http://www.hackingchinese.com/?p=2839#comment-120254 […] Kickstart your Chinese character learning with the 100 most common radicals […]

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