Radicals are the building blocks of Chinese characters. There are 214 radicals and they are the root meaning of characters.

There are also 6 major styles of characters:

1) Pictographs - Pictures of people, animals & nature

2) Ideographs - Symbols created to make more words

3) Composite Ideographs - 2 or more symbols together

4) Borrowed Characters - Same sound, different meaning, like "八" & "疤"

5) Phonetic Compounds - Extra sound to show different meaning

6) Transferred Characters - Same radical & characters, but different sound

If you start learning chinese with the 214 radicals first, then gradually move through the 6 types of characters, you'll know how to write Chinese in no time!