As long as a person has a passable foundation in Chinese, they can surmise a character ’ s meaning by looking at its components — a character with the “ wood ” radical most likely has some sort of connection with trees, for example.
張曉風說，只要稍具中文基礎的人，即使看到一個不識的字，由偏旁也可猜知大概，就像看到「木」字旁就知必然和「樹」有關，人與字之間也自然有了相識的基礎。