Have you noticed they all share a 止? 止 is a foot. 走 consists of a person and a foot to mean walk. 足 consists of a town and a foot, which originally meant that a soldier returned to his town in triumph, but now it only means foot. Characters with 走 relate to walking. Characters with 足 relate to movements of feet.
疒nè, a byword for illness, can combine with other words to express different diseases or disease-related concepts, and many words read exactly the same after they get “infected” with 疒, such as 正, 志, 豆, 全, 皮, 巴, 风.
From their writing, the only thing making 尸 and 户 different is that point. How about their meanings? Which one is more versatile? Continue reading “尸 vs 户”
The radical mound 阝is originally from the character 阜 fù. Characters with the radical mound 阝have to do with “terrain, rise, lower, etc” or its extended meaning. Continue reading “Radical mound 阝阜: on the left or right?”
You know frost 霜 shuāng fog, 雾 wù dew, 露 lù thunder, 雷 léi hail, 雹 báo etc, are all natural phenomena related to water vapor in the air. These natural phenomena are best demonstrated by Chinese characters composed of the radical 雨.
Tips:
Upon seeing characters with 雨 on the top, just think of the natural phenomena related to water vapor. These characters are semantic top-phonetic bottom such as 雨 yǔ + 非 fēi ＝ 霏fēi, 雨 yǔ + 厉 lì ＝ 雳 lì.
