字 Radicals · 84 glyphs · 5 categories

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Master the building blocks every character is made of.

Study with flashcards, test yourself with quizzes — one category at a time.

0/84Known

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0%Mastered

01 — Try it now

One card.
The whole method.

Recall first, then flip. That single moment of effort — trying before seeing — is what makes it stick.

02 — The map

Five families,
eighty-four glyphs

Radicals are learned as a connected system, not a flat list — pick a family and start a session.

03 — Your numbers

Every glyph,
one glance

One square per radical. Paper means untouched; red means in progress; gold means mastered — earned through quiz answers only.

New Seen Learning Mastered

04 — Full catalog

Browse all 84

Filter by family or mastery — search matches glyphs, meanings, and accent-free pinyin (ren finds rén).

05 — Why it works

Built on memory science

Five principles from cognitive psychology, each mapped to a mechanic you just used. Tap any to read the research.

學如逆水行舟

Learning is like rowing upstream —
stop rowing, and you drift back.

Chinese proverb · the case for daily practice

The method behind
the flashcards

RadicalIQ isn't a random pile of characters to memorise. Every screen is built on a specific, well-studied principle of how memory actually forms.

學

Learn the ~84 building blocks, and a character stops being a picture of fifteen strokes — it becomes a few familiar parts.

Radicals as building blocks

Chinese characters aren't random strokes — the overwhelming majority are assembled from a few hundred recurring components (radicals). Learn the ~84 most frequent and you can read most characters as combinations of known parts instead of memorising each as a fresh image.

In the app

The 84 radicals are split into 5 meaning-based groups (Human, Nature, Structural, Tools, Abstract) rather than an alphabetical list, so related pieces are learned as a connected system.

The science

Working memory operates on “chunks”, not individual elements — grouping raw strokes into a few known units is exactly this. Semantic grouping also aids recall more than a flat list. In second-language Chinese, learners with stronger radical awareness both remember and infer new characters better.

Miller (1956) · Taft & Chung (1999) · Shen & Ke (2007)

Vivid image anchors

An abstract glyph is hard to hold; a concrete picture is easy. Tying each radical to a vivid image and a functional metaphor gives memory something rich to grab onto.

In the app

Every radical carries an emoji anchor (人 → 🧑, 心 → ❤️, 水 → 💧) plus a systems-style “logic” note (心 = “the CPU”). Both appear at the moment you reveal the meaning — right when the association is being formed.

The science

The keyword method — pairing foreign vocabulary with a vivid mental image — reliably beats rote repetition. More broadly, the deeper and more meaningfully material is encoded (image, function, association), the stronger the memory trace.

Atkinson & Raugh (1975) · Craik & Lockhart (1972)

Recall before reveal

The act of retrieving an answer strengthens memory far more than passively re-reading it — even though rereading feels more productive in the moment.

In the app

Flashcards ask you to recall the meaning before you flip the card; the quiz forces a choice among four. You never just look — you always try first.

The science

The testing effect: learners who were tested remembered markedly more a week later than those who simply restudied, despite feeling less confident. Retrieval is the single most evidence-backed mechanic here.

Roediger & Karpicke (2006)

Spaced, not crammed

The same amount of study spread over time produces much better long-term retention than the same study massed into one sitting.

In the app

Each radical has a mastery level (0–3), earned through quiz answers, that lengthens the gap before it comes back: seen now → 1 min → 5 min → 1 day. Confident items step back; shaky ones return sooner.

The science

The spacing effect is one of the most reproducible findings in memory research, from Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve to modern meta-analysis across hundreds of experiments.

Ebbinghaus (1885) · Cepeda, Pashler et al. (2006)

Shuffled, not sequential

Learn in a fixed order and each item quietly becomes the cue for the next — a fragile chain that breaks the moment the order changes. Shuffling forces the brain to retrieve each meaning on its own.

In the app

Both the study deck and the quiz are reshuffled every session, so you never memorise the sequence instead of the characters.

The science

Interleaving practice improves durable, flexible learning versus blocked practice. It's one of Bjork's “desirable difficulties”: harder in the moment, better retained.

Bjork (1994) · Rohrer & Taylor (2007)

Grounded in cognitive psychology · not medical or clinical advice

Master the building blocks every character is made of.

One card.The whole method.

Five families,eighty-four glyphs

Every glyph,one glance

Browse all 84

Built on memory science

One card.
The whole method.

Five families,
eighty-four glyphs

Every glyph,
one glance