Chinese Radicals Vol.2

First - hopefully both volumes of this book are available. They are paperback - easy to carry around. A lot of similar materials are coming out as software, but the software is a lot more expensive. Also, there is a lot of info about Chinese radicals on the internet, but it's not as entertaining as in these 2 books, and a lot of the internet information is filled with errors (so be careful studying Chinese through the internet). This 2 volume set gives thorough explanations of about 124 of the most commonly used Chinese character radicals (out of 214 total possible), along with useful illustrations and many examples of characters in which the radicals appear, while providing balanced coverage to both traditional characters and the PRC simplified characters. It's a wonderful tool for learning fundamental concepts for the building blocks of Chinese, and for learning about half of the radicals - these books enhanced my own Chinese studies a few years back. However, it is only somewhat useful as a reference tool, primarily because it only covers about half of the radicals thoroughly. On the other hand, it makes up for that a little bit in the "radical index", in which all 214 radicals are briefly covered in about 3 pages toward the front of each of the 2 books. Referring specifically to the "radical index", it correctly lists out the order of the radicals as they appear in (most) dictionaries. However, the word "index" is misleading as it provides no clue as to what page the radical can actually be found in either of the 2 books, or whether the radical is one that has been excluded from coverage elsewhere in the texts. Another issue - Chinese pronunciations appear to be provided only for the radicals that also exist as independent characters, but there is no Chinese pronunciation offered for the radicals that never appear independently (that only appear as components within other characters). When learning Chinese, this omission doesn't matter much because almost nobody cares about Chinese radical pronunciation anyway - it's the radical's shape and meaning that are important, not how it's addressed as a unique entity. However, the lack of pronunciation for some of the radicals chips off some of the book's value as a resource for serious research. In summary, the value of the 2 book set resides mainly in the reader's purpose. Since I don't know anybody who reads dictionaries for pleasure, the lack of thorough dictionary-like organization in this 2 volume set makes Chinese studies a little more fun.

So basically what you get in this book is a second edition in a series of what should be one book. If the authors had places all of the radicals into a single book, it'd be much better. That said, the book does a good job with its animations, although you might be better off using this in tandom with an online program such as Clavis Sinica ... to break down radicals within characters and then better understand them.