Radical walker: from a radical to characters to words
Chinese is built from a few hundred parts. Pick one, open a character made from it, see what else is inside that character and the words it writes — then follow any part to the next character. 3,684 characters, 93 radicals, all in your browser.
Walk the characters
Start from a radical. Squares are grouped by stroke count, busiest first; each one is also a link to that radical's own page.
Why walking works
Most characters are two or three familiar parts put together: one hints at the meaning, another at the sound. 清 (clear) is water beside 青; swap the water for speech and you get 请 (please), for the sun and you get 晴 (sunny). Seeing that family once does more than drilling any one of them alone.
The walker lets you see it without planning. Each character shows its stroke order with the radical in orange, the other parts inside it and a few common words it writes. Tap a part to jump to the characters built on that one.
Where the parts come from, and what is missing
The parts come from the same index as the component character finder: open stroke data records which strokes of each character form its radical, the character is split at that line, and each half is identified by comparing its shape with the part written on its own. A part that cannot be matched clearly is left out, not guessed. So a few squeezed forms, like 牛 inside 物, are missing on purpose.
Readings, meanings and words come from the same dictionary as the translators, and every word links to its dictionary entry. Nothing you tap is sent anywhere, and nothing appears in the address bar.
Questions people ask
How do I find the characters that use a Chinese radical?
Press the radical. The walker lists every character in its index that contains it, commonest first, across 3,684 simplified and traditional characters. Open any one to see its stroke order with the radical drawn in its own colour, its other parts and the words it writes.
What is the difference between this and the component character finder?
The finder answers a question you already have: which character has these parts? The walker is for exploring. It starts from one part and keeps offering the next step, so you see how a few hundred pieces build the whole writing system.
Why are some characters missing from a radical?
Parts are identified by shape, and a part that changes a lot inside a character is left out rather than guessed at. The radical pages list their examples by hand, so the two together cover more than either alone.