The main radical

[delacroix01]

Recently while learning the last few dozens jouyou kanji, I've began to pay attention to the main radical of each kanji (not sure if I'm calling it correctly) so that I can memorize similar-looking kanji better. I noticed that kanji such as 板, 版 and 飯 have the same on-reading, that the only difference between them is the radical shown in dictionaries, and they all return to a simpler kanji with the same on-reading when I remove the main radical.

Now my question is : Are these radicals just for organizing words in dictionaries, or do they have more functions?

This has been on my mind for a while, so I'm really looking forward to hear from advanced learners and native speakers. Thanks in advance

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by delacroix01

Recently while learning the last few dozens jouyou kanji, I've began to pay attention to the main radical of each kanji (not sure if I'm calling it correctly) so that I can memorize similar-looking kanji better. I noticed that kanji such as 板, 版 and 飯 have the same on-reading, that the only difference between them is the radical shown in dictionaries, and they all return to a simpler kanji with the same on-reading when I remove the main radical.

Now my question is : Are these radicals just for organizing words in dictionaries, or do they have more functions?

This has been on my mind for a while, so I'm really looking forward to hear from advanced learners and native speakers. Thanks in advance

There are five categories of kanji, and one category is, I think, one in which one half hints at pronunciation and the other half hints at meaning. Something like that.

Here, 板 has the tree radical, and it means "board" or "plank" (of wood, which comes from a tree. 版 has the tree-fragment radical, and it means "edition" or "version" (see the sliiiiight hint at meaning there?). 飯 has the "eat" radical and it means "food" or "rice" or "meal" (see the meaning hint there?).

Then, as you discovered, the other half of each kanji hints at pronunciation.

[ryuurui]

As Kyle said, you have just discovered semasio-phonetic group of kanji, (one of six kanji groups), which is the largest of them all - approx. 85%. Some of the phonetic radicals may play a semantic role, but not always they do. They however sure do help in reading kanji.

Some of those radicals were added throughout the history of kanji evolution, to create more complex characters. Simply, more characters were needed to express continuously growing vocabulary. Since today we have over 85 000 kanji out there, plus all those that have not been deciphered yet, you can imagine the scope of this process.

Have a go at this article, in which I write about kanji 気. This character is one of the members of the semasio-phonetic group.

Kanji: 気 | | Beyond Calligraphy

[delacroix01]

Thank you both for making it clear for me, Kyle and ryuurui And yeah, I have bookmarked the blog a while ago since I find it really interesting and informative, and now I think it's about time to read them to reinforce my understanding about kanji and expand my vocabulary.