Question regarding Chinese radicals (Cracking the Chinese Puzzles)

[Lu 2,928]

Personally I had problems deciding which radicals to look up for 囱, 嚣, 岱，融 and such

Some dictionaries have a list with 'characters with hard to determine radicals' where you can look up those characters by number of strokes. Very useful.

[trien27 27]

In modern Chinese dictionaries, there's only 214 radicals, but not all 214 of them can be stand alone characters. In older dictionaries, you can find up to around 540 radicals. 170 is probably the number of radicals which could also be stand alone characters out of the 214?

Some dictionaries have a list with 'characters with hard to determine radicals' where you can look up those characters by number of strokes. Very useful.

True, but it should be "characters with hard to determine radicals' where you can look up those characters by total number of strokes." Keywords are "total number of strokes" You find the character by finding the total number of strokes, not just the number of strokes.

Edited November 3, 2008 by trien27
additional information

[Lu 2,928]

What is the difference between 'the number of strokes in a character' and 'the total number of strokes in a character'? To me those things look like they mean exactly the same.