<ul>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_dictionary" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Wikipedia</a></li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<p>The second system of dictionary organization is by recurring graphic
components or radicals. (...) As most
Chinese characters are semantic-phonetic ones (形聲字), the radical
method is usually effective, thus it continues to be widely used in
the present day. However, sometimes the radical of a character is not
obvious. To compensate this, a &quot;Chart of Characters that Are Difficult
to Look up&quot; (難檢字表), arranged by the number of strokes of the
characters, is usually provided.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here is what a chart of radicals in a dictionary looks like</p>
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/6SRQK.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/6SRQK.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
<ul>
<li>You can otherwise search a character by its pinyin if you know it.</li>
</ul>
<p>See also: <a href="https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-look-up-Chinese-characters-in-a-Chinese-dictionary" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-look-up-Chinese-characters-in-a-Chinese-dictionary</a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-02-24T19:41:40.970Z
Thank you, my question was moved from the Language Learning forum, so I decided to generalize my question. Now I think it belongs back to the first forum again. I you know someone who can move it back that would be great.
Demis
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-02-25T02:45:13.190Z
@Demis Please don't change a question after an answer has been provided. Minor edits such as typos and clarifications are OK, but moving the goalposts is not.
Tsundoku
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-02-24T19:07:36.577Z
2021-02-24T19:07:36.577Z
Starckman
<p>Since Chinese. Japanese and Korean have no alphabetical writing system how do those people sort their dictionaries?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-02-24T19:43:14.830Z
https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/135/how-to-find-characters-in-a-dictionary?rq=1
Shaw
<dictionary>
How are dictionaries of ideograms sorted?
# How are dictionaries of ideograms sorted?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-02-24)

Since Chinese. Japanese and Korean have no alphabetical writing system how do those people sort their dictionaries?

**Tags:** dictionary

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/135/how-to-find-characters-in-a-dictionary?rq=1  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2021-02-24. Score: 2

* [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_dictionary)

> The second system of dictionary organization is by recurring graphic
> components or radicals. (...) As most
> Chinese characters are semantic-phonetic ones (形聲字), the radical
> method is usually effective, thus it continues to be widely used in
> the present day. However, sometimes the radical of a character is not
> obvious. To compensate this, a "Chart of Characters that Are Difficult
> to Look up" (難檢字表), arranged by the number of strokes of the
> characters, is usually provided.

Here is what a chart of radicals in a dictionary looks like

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/6SRQK.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/6SRQK.png)

* You can otherwise search a character by its pinyin if you know it.

See also: <https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-look-up-Chinese-characters-in-a-Chinese-dictionary>

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thank you, my question was moved from the Language Learning forum, so I decided to generalize my question. Now I think it belongs back to the first forum again. I you know someone who can move it back that would be great.  
> **username_3**: @username_0 Please don't change a question after an answer has been provided. Minor edits such as typos and clarifications are OK, but moving the goalposts is not.  

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