Chinese-English Talking Dictionary

Search Characters By Their Components

How to search for characters by their structure and component

• Select the matching structure. A character's structure simply identifies how its components are grouped together, such as left/right, top/bottom, etc. The diagrams above identify all possible structures next to a sample character with that structure.
• Identify the components. Enter the components expected in each part of the structure. The brush icon located to the right of each component box is a handwriting recognizer which lets you specify the character by drawing it. The "Radical Chooser" button will pop up a radical selector. The "No other" checkbox indicates that there should be no other component in that part of the structure.
• You can further constrain the results by identifying the type of character and character frequency. In order to search to search for characters that are beyond the top 500, please sign-in.

If you are searching for a single character whose representation you already know, it is easier to use the handwriting recognizer in the Word or Character search tab.

See also

• Frequently Asked Questions