Learning Radicals

So how am I learning radicals?

As I wrote in my previous post, Mandarin Poster is of great help. The website sells huge posters with 1500 Mandarin Chinese words (with pinyin). I am considering buying it.

Right now, however, I am using the free resources offered by their website. And what is that? A simplified radicals’ list (all on 1 page), the Chinese radicals database and a free downloadable and printable radicals’ poster.

mandarinposter.com/resources

I printed out the all-on-one-page radicals’ list, as well as the radicals’ poster. Now I am learning all the radicals (I will show you my work tomorrow).

But I would also like to describe the great radicals’ databease available online for free.
The radicals are listed according to the number of strikes. Each radical has its own page with: the Chinese sign, pinyin, variations, zhuyin, English meaning, important notes, a list of words that use that radical and example sentences (Chinese, pinyin and English). It is a very useful tool! And it looks like this:

mandarinposter.com

This is not a paid advertisement. I really find this website a very simple, yet useful tool for Chinese self-learners!

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The Method

The method turned out to be very simple. I just needed 2 pieces of information to guide me. And I got them form the book.

1. It was clearly expressed how important radicals are. Result? I threw away my books and focused on learning all of them.

2. Mr. Giles also explained the construction of phrases.
果 guǒ  means fruit.
So does:
水果 shuǐ guǒ
Hundreds of words are the same – you can express something using just one sign or two signs. At first I thought that it’s better to learn the single-sign word. Thanks to Mr. Giles I know that it’s MUCH better and more useful to learn the two-sign words.

I know – it’s nothing much. But these two thing changes my learning process completely 🙂
And I found help at Mandarin Poster.