"Alex" > writes:

> Lew wrote: "There's no rule that will
> infallibly tell you which of the four is "the" radical to look up the
> character under. I haven't seen a dictionary that lists characters
> under *all* their radicals. Does anyone know if such a beast exists?"
>
> You have pinpointed one of the biggest pains in the ass associated with
> learning Chinese. Actually every character has only one radical.

I'm aware that most people talk that way, but it kind of begs the
question of what makes it "the" radical.

> The more you use a dictionary, the more luck you'll have figuring
> out which of the possible radicals is *the* radical. One small hint
> is that it is usually the outermost.

Outermost? It's pretty unusual for one radical to enclose all the
others, though it does happen.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html