Kanji Lookup by Radical

A kanji radical (bushu) is a component part that appears within kanji characters. There are 214 traditional radicals called the Kangxi radicals, though many kanji learning systems use a simplified subset. Radicals are useful for kanji lookup because they help you identify and find kanji even when you do not know the reading. By recognizing the radical components of an unknown kanji, you can narrow down which character it is. Radicals also provide semantic clues about a kanji meaning, as many kanji sharing the same radical have related meanings.

To look up an unknown kanji by radical, first identify the most prominent or recognizable component part of the kanji. Then find that radical in the radical grid organized by stroke count. Click on the radical to see all kanji that contain it. Browse through the results to find the specific kanji you are looking for. If the radical produces too many results, you can look for additional radical components to narrow your search. This method works even when you cannot read the kanji or type it.

Radicals are traditionally organized by the number of brush strokes needed to write them, ranging from 1 stroke (such as the horizontal line radical) to 17 or more strokes. Simpler radicals with fewer strokes tend to appear more frequently across kanji. In this tool, radicals are grouped into sections by stroke count, making it easy to find a radical by estimating how many strokes it has. Common radicals like water (3 strokes), tree (4 strokes), and person (2 strokes) are among the most frequently used.

Learning radicals is beneficial at every JLPT level, but it becomes increasingly important from N3 onward. At N5 and N4, you encounter approximately 100 to 300 kanji, many of which are simple enough to memorize individually. Starting at N3 with around 650 kanji, recognizing radical components becomes essential for distinguishing similar-looking characters and remembering meanings. By N2 and N1, which require knowledge of 1,000 and 2,000 kanji respectively, radical awareness is practically indispensable for efficient learning and recall.

The most frequently appearing radicals in common kanji include water (three dots on the left), tree or wood (appearing in nature-related kanji), person or human (appearing in kanji about people and actions), mouth (appearing in kanji about speaking and eating), earth or ground, hand, heart or mind, sun or day, and the speech radical. Learning these high-frequency radicals first gives you the ability to recognize components in a large number of kanji. Most JLPT study programs introduce these common radicals early in the curriculum.