🧠 Kanji World Insight

亻（にんべん）is the left-side variant of 人 “person.” It always appears on the left (a hen position). In 働, “to work,” the parts are 亻 (person) + 動 (action/movement) — a clear example of a Type 2 variant radical signaling “human action.”

Compare that with 疒（やまいだれ）— a radical that never stands alone. It flags illness and appears in kanji such as 病 (sickness). Here, 疒 contributes the “sickness” idea, while the right-hand part 丙 acts as a phonetic component (hinting readings like ビョウ). This is a classic Type 3 semantic-only radical: pure meaning, no standalone character.

Finally, consider the vertical stroke ⼁. By itself it carries no meaning, but it helps organize characters by shape and structure — a Type 4 role used in traditional indexing and form-based sorting.

The radical system blends history, meaning, and practicality. Every kanji has an official radical for classification, but to grasp the full meaning you look at the whole team of parts — radical, semantic components, and sometimes phonetics.

Radicals give us insight, but they’re just the starting point — like root labels on a branching tree of meaning.