the eye. Such anomalous instances amount to about two hundred, all of them primitives, while the remainder will give less trouble in ascertaining the proper radical. About one half (108) of the radicals are placed on the right or left of the primitive,—constituting one half of the character, and easily recognized. Others, like 二, 勹, 匚匸, 囗, 行, 門 and 鬥 embrace the primitive, and give no trouble. About 40 of them are placed on the top of the primitive, a few of which enter into combination with it, as in 奉, 夷, 彝, in such a manner as to give some hesitation as to the radical; while others, as 宀, 广, 疒, 爪, 穴, 竹, 罒, 艹, 虍, 雨, are more apparent. For many of the remainder, where the radical is either in combination, or the character is formed of two or three radicals, as 相, 聾, or 現, practice will soon give the necessary facility in finding them. Some characters as 𢑷, 𢐭, 豑, 𨑊, 𡳨, 朅, made up of two primitives, are usually placed with reference to their meaning, and not to the most prominent part where they would be looked for; but their number is small. An examination of the radicals and the groups placed under them will be found in Williams' Easy Lessons, pp. 4–29, and in Medhurst's Chinese and English Dictionary, pp. xvi–xxiv.
In counting the number of strokes in a character, the radical is not reckoned. After becoming familiar with the radicals themselves, and having a general acquaintance with the primitives, the number of strokes can most quickly be ascertained by inspection. For instance, the character mút꜇ 𩱷 rice porridge, found under the radical lik 鬲, is made up of 弓, 弓, 米 and 𫈦 which severally number 3, 3, 6, and 15 strokes, or 27 in all; the character ím꜅ 灩 bubbling water, placed under the radical shui 水, is composed of 曲, 豆, 去, 皿, numbering 6, 7, 5, and 5 strokes, or 23 in all. The number of characters formed of so many strokes as these is very few, and in most cases a glance at the word is sufficient to see how many make it.
