(Question!) Help! "Water" in Chinese?

The character on the right means water (shui, 3rd tone).
The character on the left is the so called 'radical' made from the character 'shui', it is essentially a squashed version that will be 'attached' to other characters that are related to water, like the character for 'River' for example.

This will essentially be a help to you guessing new characters you haven't met before, you look at the radical and it will give you a hint of what it is about.

I hope you understand what I mean now, if not, it would seem that you haven't had a proper introduction to chinese characters, in which case I would highly suggest you get one. This will accelerate the learning process greatly, as you will actually understand why a character looks the way it does! 
Character introduction will explain principles such as radicals, phono-semantic compounds, ideogrammic compounds and pictograms (and a few other things for that matter), sounds complicated but it really isn't once you get your head around it. And as I said, it will help your learning process as you go on.

All the best & good luck! :)

 

Many symbols have squashed or abbreviated forms that are used when this symbol is part of another symbol. Examples:

水 water -> ⺡(as in 河 or 消)
氷 ice -> 冫(as in 冷 or 次)
辵 movement -> ⻌ (as in 速 or 週)
手 hand -> ⺘(as in 持 or 授)
犬 dog ->⺨(as in 猫 or 狭)
人 person -> 亻(as in 休)
心 heart -> 㣺(as in 性 or 忙) or ⺗ at bottom (as in 態)
火 fire -> 灬 at bottom (as in 点 or 黒)
示 omen -> ⺭(as in 社 or 神)
衣 clothing -> (as in 初 or 被)
糸 thread -> 幺
阜 hills -> ⻖(on the left side, as in 除)
邑 village -> ⻏ (on the right side, as in 都)
艸 grass -> 艹 (on top, as in 花)

And so on.