The Chinese Character Decomposition: The Technological Process

The Chinese character decomposition is very understandable in its nature and serves for the purpose ‘make simple from complicated’.

If we take the Chinese character 门 mén ‘gate’, consisting of 3 strokes, everyone can easily break it down to simple radicals:

丶 zhǔ dot,

丨 gǔn line,

㇆ yǐ second,

What if we have to decompose a more complicated character, for example 齉  nàng ‘snuffle, twang, speak through one's nose’, consisting of 36 strokes?

Nothing difficult. We keep again the main principle of the Chinese character decomposition process ‘make simple from complicated’!

A quick review of the character 齉  nàng ‘snuffle, twang, speak through one's nose’ shows that it consists of a radical and a character:

1. Radical - 鼻  bí ‘nose’ - 14 strokes

2. Character - 囊  náng ‘bag, pocket’ - 22 strokes

We have to take into consideration that the Chinese radical鼻  bí ‘nose’ includes one rare component - 畁  bì ‘give, allow’.

The Chinese character 囊  náng ‘bag, pocket’ also includes one rare component - 吅  xuān ‘sue, argue’.

Having done such structural analysis of the Chinese character 齉  nàng ‘snuffle, twang, speak through one's nose’, the rest we have to do is to decompose each component into simple Chinese radicals and components. I repeat not into strokes but into the Chinese radicals and components.

Thus, the overall decomposition of the Chinese character 齉  nàng ‘snuffle, twang, speak through one's nose’ looks like the following:

齉  nàng ‘snuffle, twang, speak through one's nose’,

鼻  bí nose,

自 zì self,

丿 piě slash,

目 mù  eye,

冂 jiōng down box,

三 sān three,

一 yī one,

二 èr two,

畁  bì give, allow,

由  tián field,

囗 wéi enclosure,

冂 jiōng down box,

十 shí ten,

一 yī one,

丨 gǔn line,

一 yī one,

兀  yóu lame,

一 yī one,

儿 ér boy,

丿 piě slash,

乚 yǐ second,

囊  náng bag, pocket,

一 yī one,

中  zhōng centre,

口 kǒu mouth,

冂 jiōng down box,

一 yī one,

丨 gǔn line,

冖 mì cover,

吅  xuān sue, argue,

口 kǒu mouth,

冂 jiōng down box,

一 yī one,

口 kǒu mouth,

冂 jiōng down box,

一 yī one,

井  jǐng well,

一 yī one,

廾 gǒng two hands,

一 yī one,

丿 piě slash,

丨 gǔn line,

衣 yī clothing (reduced radical without丶 zhǔ ‘dot’),

亠 tóu lid,

丶 zhǔ dot,

一 yī one,

匚 fāng right open box,

一 yī one,

丿 piě slash,

A lot of components, isn’t it? Now we understand all the components. And writing of the Chinese character  齉  nàng ‘snuffle, twang, speak through one's nose’ is not a problem for us any more: we just need to remember the sequence of the components!

The Chinese character decomposition saves a huge amount of time learning how to write a Chinese character!