工 — the “work” radical

Radical #48 3 strokes

a carpenter's tool 5 of the JLPT kanji on this site are built with it — recognizing the piece makes them far easier to remember.

Kanji using the 工 radical (5)

工craft, construction 差distinction, difference 左left 巨gigantic, big 巧adroit, skilled

← 巛 river 己 self →

Radicals (部首, bushu) are the shared building blocks of kanji, used to sort them in every dictionary. Learn the common ones and new kanji stop looking random.