🧱 Four Types of Radicals

1. Kanji Radicals – These are full kanji that also serve as radicals — like 水 (water), 木 (tree), or 言 (speech). They can stand alone and often represent a consistent, clear concept within more complex kanji.
2. Kanji Variants – Shape-altered forms of full kanji used in radical positions, such as 忄 (from 心 for emotions), 亻 (from 人 for human), or 扌 (from 手 for actions). These preserve the original meaning in a compact form.
3. Semantic-Only Radicals – Shapes that do not appear as standalone kanji but carry specific meaning in compound characters. Examples include 艹 (plants), ⻌ (roads), 囗 (enclosure), and 疒 (illness).
4. Abstract Strokes – Simple marks like 丶, 亅, or ⼁ that don’t have semantic meaning but help organize kanji by structure or appearance.

This framework helps us see how meaning in kanji is built layer by layer — starting from full characters, moving through shape variants and semantic clues, and finally to structural tags.