Must Learn Radicals - Kanji

The 214 traditional kanji radicals and their variants

Kanji are classified in kanji dictionaries according to their main components which are called radicals (roots) in English and 部首 (ぶしゅ) in Japanese. 部 (ぶ) means a group and 首 (しゅ) means a chief (head/neck). There are 214 historical radicals derived from the 18th century Kangxi dictionary.
Every kanji without exception only has one radical / 部首 (ぶしゅ). Each radical has a meaning(s) and lends its meaning(s) to the kanji of which it is part. Please take a look at the examples below. The right part of these three kanji is the same but the left part is different. The left part of these kanji is their radical. Note how each radical imparts its meaning to the kanji:
時:  The radical of this kanji is 日 (sun, day, time). The meaning of this kanji is “time.”
詩:  The radical of this kanji is 言 (words, to speak, say). The meaning of this kanji is “poetry, poem”.
持:  The radical of this kanji is 扌(hand). The meaning of this kanji is “to hold”.
For this reason it is very important to learn each kanji’s radical, as well as the meaning(s) of its radical. Not all 214 radicals are in use in current Japanese but you will soon become familiar with the most important ones and their variants.
There are no official Japanese names for radicals. But there are certain commonly-used names. That is why you will find differences in the Japanese names for the radicals on different websites and dictionaries.
Radicals are categorized into seven main groups according to their position within a kanji. Please note that some kanji are also radicals in and of themselves (such as 大, 日, 月). In those cases, the kanji and the radical are one and the same, and thus the position of the radical in the kanji is irrelevant. As a result they do not fall into any one of the seven categories.

へん (hen)		Radicals on the left side of the kanji
つくり (tsukuri)		Radicals on the right
かんむり (kanmuri)		Radicals on the top
あし (ashi)		Radicals on the bottom
かまえ (kamae)		Radicals which enclose the kanji
たれ (tare)		Radicals which "hang down"
にょう (nyou)		Radicals which wrap around the bottom of a character

Learn Kanji Easy - 1

TIPS TO PASS JLPT N5

TIPS TO PASS JLPT N5

This is the first of five tips on how to pass the JLPT N5 exam. For other readers, these same strategies can be applied to the JLPT N4 level and above.  So let’s Star.

Tips Ichi: Know the curriculum

Keep an easy to use resource that allows you to see all the JLPT N5 vocabulary and JLPT N5 kanji you need to know for the exam. The JLPT Wall Chart is an excellent way to do this as it has all the JLPT N5 kanji and vocabulary listed with their English meanings in an easy to study format. In addition to this you should also have a resource for the grammar points too. Keep check of the items you have already mastered and work on those that you need to improve on. Your think should be to master the entire curriculum for the exam so there will be no hesitation to choose the right answer on exam day. Master the curriculum by constantly reviewing even as you learning new words or kanji. The more you review the easier it will be for you to accurately recall what you have learned. This will give you immense confidence of exam day. While exam time, the students who are nervous to the point that there performance is affected are usually the ones who breezes through the JLPT N5 curriculum and have not invested the time to review the material repeatedly.

Tip Ni. Time Yourself

Timing is important when taking the JLPT N5 exam.  The kanji, reading, and listening sections of the exam are treated as separate tests and are allotted their own time limit.

What this means is that if you finish your strongest section quickly you cannot transfer the time you saved to another section of the test.  Conversely, if one section took you a lot of time you cannot make up that time in another section.  Not completing a section means therefore that you have lost points that you cannot redeem and may end up not passing the JLPT, running out of time means you are taking too long to answer some or all the questions.  This is usually because you have not mastered the JLPT N5 material so you spend a lot of time thinking about the question.

Not being sure, second guessing and changing your answers often, are signs that you did not spend enough time preparing for the section of the exam (kanji, reading, listening) you are having trouble with,how does this affect your studies?  When you are doing sample questions you should time yourself to see if you are able to answer within a similar amount of time that will be allotted on the real exam. 

If you are exceed the time limit in your studies at home it means that you will run out of time on exam day.  If you find this out early enough you can practice until you are answering sample questions at a speed that is quick enough to ensure that you can complete each section of the exam within the time allotted.  This will increase your chances of passing the JLPT N5.