Chinese characters

here's another example of how often you can get very close to the pronunciation but not exactly right:

http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-etymology.php?searchChinese=1&zi=%E6%B4%97

洗 meaning to wash has the water radical on the left and 先 pronounced xian1 on the right is the phonetic. Now yellowbridge has xian3 as one of the possible pronunciations of 洗 but I have only ever heard of it as xi3. So you can see xian and xi are similar but it wouldn't be right to say xian toufa ...for wash hair...it has to be xi toufa...and it's this xi you'll be using. The other thing is I don't think it ever gives you the tone, but I'd be happy to be corrected on that.

”But every second taxi driver in Sydney disagrees with me; they love to say 'Ah, you are learning Chinese! Let me tell you a secret: the left side of the character tells you meaning and the right side of the character tells you how to pronounce it! Easy!' :)“

。。that sounds like a fun game. Be the dumb student, tell 'em you get it, and start working through some examples with them, like these guys:

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?cdqrad=163

where the radical is on the right side. Tell em some clown told you sometimes the radical is on top, and sometimes its underneath and how relieved you are to find out it's so much simpler than that.

Hé you give me a link to a site with all these radicals? Should i know them by heart?

Also what do they actually mean or do?

There is a famous dictionary that has a list of 200 and some radicals (kangxi cidian) that is as close as you will get to an official list. Anyway, there is a copy here: http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/radicals.php

Radicals are used to classify characters for look up in dictionaries; every character is filed in the dictionary under a radical that is part of that character.

Otherwise, if you look at Chinese characters for long enough, you will notice that they very often share components. I tried to create a more hyper-linked kind of character dictionary. http://huamake.com it hasn't gotten much traction, but given your questions, you might find it interesting, and I personally find it convenient for looking up printed characters. Zhongwen.com and http://chinese-characters.org are also good resources for information about character structure.

Here is a write up of my own idiosyncratic view about the structure of Chinese characters, http://hubpages.com/hub/What-is-a-Chinese-Character Again, given your questions, you might find it interesting.

hey mate, I only gave you the link to the list because you were asking about them not because I thought you had to learn them all by heart...it was only for if you're interested. At some stage I think it's helpful to know them, at least the more common ones, but if you're a newbie there may well be other things you want to learn first...it's all up to you. As Mark has said above, it helps you look up characters, particularly in paper dictionaries. It also may gave a hint to the meaning...sometimes this hint can be a little obscure though. Also, as there are probably 80,000+ characters but only 214 radicals and the radicals keep reappearing in these characters, it makes it much easier in my opinion to learn the characters. But I think that becomes more important when you have learnt a heap of characters and then some start to look the same with only subtle differences. At least you know the list is there for future reference for when you feel inclined to learn them..or you can just learn them as you go in the characters you're learning. IHTH. :)

there are lists out there, such as this one, that list the 40 or so most common radicals. These will be found in most of the 2 or 3 thousand most common characters. If you learn these, you will be prepared to identify the radical in 90% or more of the characters you are likely to encounter as a new student. A good start and easier than learning 214. The others you can pick up as you go. Just my approach.

http://yolearnchinese.com/archives/40-most-common-radicals