the regular of Chinese character All the Chinese words are made by several parts. One of them named radical, I mean side of a character. It can tell you the main meaning of the word. For example,海（sea），its radical is 氵，this one means water. So, when you see it next time, you can guess, the word is something about water. 河 river /he/ 溪 stream /xi/ 海 sea /hai/ 洋 ocean /yang/ And 氵——san dian shui That’s about words.