We have before mentioned that most characters are build up from smaller parts, radicals. Today I meant to write about a more complex and highly frequent character but to be able to do that I first need to start with the parts that the character is build from. I start with 日.

Character:  日 

Traditional form: 日
Pinyin: rì

Meaning: sun,day

Frequency: 67

Strokes: 4

Decomposition: 日

Radical part: 日

Alternative forms of radical: 

Radical meaning: sun,day

Stroke animation: (the strokes are drawn the direction the picture is tipping)

Etymology:

This is a character that have looked pretty much the same during history.

It is basically the sun with the aura around it. There have been small variants like:

One early seal character that I find very interesting is this one:

In the next post we will talk about foot. This character form is having a foot inside the sun describing the suns movement over the sky.

Link to nciku usage of the character 日 (examples, sound etc)

http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E6%97%A5/1312649

Example words: 

日本 Rì běn Japan / Japanese 
日期 rì qī date 
生日 shēng rì birthday 
日报 rì bào daily newspaper 
当日 dāng rì that very day / the same day 
节日 jié rì
平日 píng rì an ordinary day 
日照 rì zhào sunshine 
日式 Rì shì Japanese style 
同日 tóng rì same day / simultaneous 
出生日期 chū shēng rì qī date of birth 
每日 měi rì daily