Essential Radicals
There are 214 radicals. You don’t need to start with all of them. This is the 96 that matter first, as a practice book you write in.
- The 96 essential radicals, chosen by frequency analysis
- Three example characters each, with stroke order and practice blocks
- Extra drill sheets at the back
- Two full charts of all 214 Kangxi radicals and their variants
What you get
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.
We ran our character frequency list against the radicals and pulled out the 96 we think are essential. Each 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.
Goes well with
Everything we make, in one download: the first 2,000 characters as posters, practice sheets, reference sheets and flashcards, plus every radicals resource.
The 1,000 most common Chinese characters, four ways: poster, practice sheets, reference sheets and flashcards.
The 1,000 most common Chinese characters on one wall poster, ordered by frequency. Around 90% of what you’ll meet in a modern text.