寺 should mention it's made of 土 and 寸

[Squirbo]

Why don’t radicals have a “radical combination” section?

In “Remembering the Kanji” I learned that temple 寺 is dirt 土 and measurement 寸 stacked on top of each other. We know both of these radicals by the time temple is introduced. Why not mention that?

I suppose Wanikani is a little inconsistent on whether it teaches you the kanji on its own first, or as a radical first. It could have taught “temple” first and then revealed it to be a radical in the next level.

[Belthazar]

Yeah, as a mnemonic, “it kinda looks like a temple, don’t you think?” is, uh… weak.

I’ve raised that question before, why radicals can’t be assembled from other radicals - even when the mnemonic explicitly describes them like that - and the response was basically “the system isn’t really set up to handle that”.