Essential Radicals (Simplified Chinese)

There are 214 radicals. You don't need to start with all of them.

Learn the building blocks of simplified characters — the first real step towards reading, writing and recognising Chinese. This is a practice book, not a chart: it's meant to be printed and written in.

The 96 that matter first

We ran our character frequency list against the radicals and pulled out the 96 we think are essential. They're the ones that appear again and again in the characters you'll actually meet, which makes them the fastest way in.

Each radical comes with three example characters chosen deliberately — weighed by how often the character appears, how hard it is to write, its HSK level, and how clearly it shows the radical at work.

Every radical and every example character is shown with stroke order diagrams and practice writing blocks. Print it and fill it in.

Also included

• Extra drill sheets at the back for further practice
• Two full charts of all 214 Kangxi radicals and their variants — one in traditional Kangxi order, one ordered by stroke count

Please note

This book is simplified Chinese only — it's the one product in our range without a traditional edition.

For traditional characters, The Chinese Radicals Scroll covers all 214 radicals with both original and simplified forms.

How it works

Download and print at home. Print the practice pages as many times as you like. Nothing is shipped.