The heart radical 心

Read xīn, 4 strokes. It indexes 98 distinct HSK characters.

98HSK characters

4Strokes

#61Radical number

心Glyph

Quick answer

What does the heart radical (心) mean, and which characters use it?

Heart (心, xīn) is Kangxi radical 61, and it usually marks a character whose meaning is connected to heart. 98 distinct HSK characters are filed under it, the most common being 心, 意, 情. When you meet a new character carrying 心, expect its sense to touch heart and let the other component hint at the sound.

How this radical works inside a character

Most characters built on 心 follow the meaning-plus-sound pattern: 心 sits on one side to signal the heart sense, and a second component supplies the approximate pronunciation. So you are rarely memorizing a whole new shape, you are recognizing heart plus a part you may already read. The list below is in corpus-frequency order, so the characters you will actually meet first are at the top: learn them in this order and the rest of the heart-radical family gets easier as you go.

All 98 heart characters 98 characters

#	Char	Pīnyīn	Strokes	HSK 3.0	HSK 2.0
1	心	xīn	4	2	3
2	意	yì	13	2	2
3	情	qíng	11	2	2
4	性	xìng	8	3	4
5	感	gǎn	13	2	3
6	想	xiǎng	13	1	1
7	急	jí	9	2	3
8	总	zǒng	9	3	3
9	快	kuài	7	1	2
10	思	sī	9	2	2
11	惊	jīng	11	4	4
12	念	niàn	8	3	5
13	息	xī	10	1	2
14	必	bì	5	2	3
15	愿	yuàn	14	2	3
16	恶	è	10	4	5
17	怀	huái	7	4	4
18	忙	máng	6	1	2
19	态	tài	8	2	4
20	志	zhì	7	3	4
21	怪	guài	8	3	3
22	忘	wàng	7	1	3
23	慢	màn	14	1	2
24	忍	rěn	7	5	5
25	悲	bēi	12	5	5
26	慌	huāng	12	5	5
27	恐	kǒng	10	3	4
28	怨	yuàn	9	5	6
29	恰	qià	9	6	6
30	怎	zěn	9	1	1
31	忽	hū	8	2	4
32	怕	pà	8	2	3
33	惯	guàn	11	2	3
34	惜	xī	11	5	4
35	忧	yōu	7	6	6
36	恩	ēn	10	6	6
37	悬	xuán	11	6	6
38	忌	jì	7	7-9	6
39	恨	hèn	9	5	5
40	恋	liàn	10	5	5
41	愁	chóu	13	5	5
42	忠	zhōng	8	6	6
43	患	huàn	11	6	6
44	惨	cǎn	11	6	6
45	惑	huò	12	7-9	6
46	愈	yù	13	7-9	6
47	忆	yì	4	5	4
48	惠	huì	12	5	5
49	慰	wèi	15	5	5
50	怒	nù	9	6	5
51	悟	wù	10	6	6
52	懒	lǎn	16	6	4
53	恼	nǎo	9	7-9	4
54	恳	kěn	10	7-9	5
55	悠	yōu	11	7-9	5
56	愧	kuì	12	7-9	5
57	懂	dǒng	15	2	2
58	悉	xī	11	5	4
59	愤	fèn	12	6	5
60	恭	gōng	10	7-9	6
61	悼	dào	11	7-9	6
62	愚	yú	13	7-9	6
63	慈	cí	13	7-9	6
64	慎	shèn	13	7-9	5
65	怜	lián	8	5	4
66	悔	huǐ	10	5	4
67	怠	dài	9	7-9	6
68	恒	héng	9	7-9	6
69	恕	shù	10	7-9	6
70	悦	yuè	10	7-9	6
71	惧	jù	11	7-9	6
72	惩	chéng	12	7-9	6
73	惫	bèi	12	7-9	6
74	惹	rě	12	7-9	6
75	愣	lèng	12	7-9	6
76	慨	kǎi	12	7-9	6
77	懈	xiè	16	7-9	·
78	您	nín	11	1	2
79	恢	huī	9	5	5
80	悄	qiāo	10	5	5
81	愉	yú	12	6	4
82	慧	huì	15	6	5
83	憾	hàn	16	6	5
84	怖	bù	8	7-9	5
85	怡	yí	8	7-9	·
86	怯	qiè	8	7-9	6
87	恍	huǎng	9	7-9	6
88	恤	xù	9	7-9	·
89	惋	wǎn	11	7-9	6
90	惕	tì	11	7-9	6
91	惦	diàn	11	7-9	6
92	惭	cán	11	7-9	5
93	惰	duò	12	7-9	6
94	慑	shè	13	7-9	·
95	慕	mù	14	7-9	4
96	慷	kāng	14	7-9	6
97	憋	biē	15	7-9	6
98	惮	dàn	11	·	6

tone 1 tone 2 tone 3 tone 4 neutral Order = corpus frequency, most common first · · = not in that scheme

Strokes and radical assignment come from the Unicode Han Database (Unicode 17.0.0, field kRSUnicode); the HSK levels and the frequency order are computed from the shipped HSK word lists. A small number of characters have a contested radical across dictionaries; the primary Unicode analysis is used throughout. Last verified 2026-07-24. See the full radical explorer or the characters-per-level reference.

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Drill the heart-radical characters on a schedule

This list is free to browse and self-test here, always. If you would rather practice recognizing these characters on your phone with spaced repetition, we recommend Wordbrush, our one disclosed pick. Never a gate on this page.

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