I never seem to have a problem with Power and Nine. The flexing muscle inwards (like doing a dum-bell) stuck in my mind…
However they are other stuff… Im keep screwing up the Kanji and Vocab reading 
Annoying… Then i do stuff like e.g. the radical for fins i put down eight and the radical for spoon i put seven…
Work is so slow today.
That’s a nice visual mnemonic.
I pictured 九 as writing “nine” in cursive, so the hook is where you start writing the “i”.
Thanks. I was getting the radical spoon confused with seven - guess the slash doesn’t go all the way through. I will need to remember the higher right stroke overhand for 8 - hopefully that should stick.
Also to original poster - if WaniKani mnemonic/story or whatever is not working you might want to see if you can find a story that sticks, or make one up yourself. There’s not going to be a definitive source - as it has to impact or relate to yourself.
I hope im not breaking the rules (couldn’t see anything)- but check out some other resources to get an story or idea to create your own story KanjiDamage and Koohii (this one has user submitted stories. It was made for RTK and has that order, but you can also search using the browse feature)
I have never “seen” the spoon in the spoon radical. Has anyone?
There are no rules against recommending other resources. In fact, there’s an entire thread dedicated to that, check it out.
https://community.wanikani.com/t/the-what-do-i-do-now-thread-free-resource-list/6534
Thank you. The spoon radical is in the radical 1 to 10 – come to think about it, I don’t know why im getting it confused with 7… It looks more like the katakana ヒ… Strange it never occurred to me until now. Where kuchi clicked with ro and ta clicked with evening. I should remember now.
I always felt that 力 looked like an arm flexing with power, curved inward, kinda like these two guys:
For 九 I just remember it as it as nine, not sure why, probably because I think of a nonagon with nine sides, and that 丸 later is for circle (infinite-sided polygon). Also, the hook on the bottom right of 九 isn’t very armish to me compared to 力, too bent.
There’s even a userscript that uses user-created mnemonics! (I think.) It’s somewhere in the API section. Look in the big list by ShotgunLagoon.
Nope! In fact, from the outset, I called it “hi” ヒ because it looked identical to the katakana.
Get a piece of paper and write them out side by side. Copy each one a few times. Actually having to write/draw something helps us notice all the little details we tend to overlook when just, you know, looking.
Tbh, the way I remember the differences between nine and power is 力 is flexing but 九 can’t flex because it broke its arm, so it is powerless. ???
I remember it by power (ちから) has か in it and 力 looks like katakana カ
This is also 9. 刀…
Right??
…
UPDATE
You guys were totally right. Just looking at them side by side and focusing on the differences really did help. Now I just moved to being quizzed on a couple of Kanjis and I’m confused about what they’re asking! When it says “radical” I know what to answer, but if it says kanji meaning am I supposed to be answering something different? When do I write “one” vs. “ground” vs. “itchy”?
If it is the radical you put ground
if it is the vocab or kanji meaning you put one
if it is the vocab or kanji reading you put いち。
Check the background color, you will get used to it.
Blue – radical
Pink – Kanji
Violet – vocab
On level 1 you will already see vocab 人 (ひと) and kanji 人 (にん, じん). Kanji can be read differently in different contexts, you should looks closely at the explanations, background color, and go slowly in the beginning.
I guess I’m missing something. Where is it I’m supposed to be learning
something additional to attach to these radicals I’ve memorized? I happen
to know how to count from one to ten, so those I could take a stab at, but
it never told me any proper spelling for 3. It only said “son” but I
already knew it was “San” so I got that one. But another example is the
character that is “construction” or “industry” … where have I missed that
they taught me something else about that word? Anything I type it has said
is wrong and it’s obvious there’s just a step I’ve missed somewhere.
It’s 匙 さじ spoon. Also, if the hook of the second stroke connects with the first stroke, it becomes a nice spoon facing the right side.
七 is overly spiked to the left, so it can’t be a spoon. (Although, spoon radical in writing can sometimes actually be both 匕 and 七.)
