Hey! I created a mind map that attempts to bring some structure to WaniKani vocabulary.
You can check it out here: WaniKani Mind Map
It includes a short tutorial explaining how to use the tool. I think it could be really helpful for building sentences and seeing vocabulary not in isolation, but as part of meaningful semantic groups.
Two months ago, the map had only 5 levels added; now it’s got more than a thousand words and full 10 levels’ worth of vocab to train written output with. My ultimate goal is to keep adding words there and maybe map all of WaniKani one day
One other link between kanji that I found very helpful as I was growing my inventory was breaking down the phono-semantic composition, like how for instance a whole bunch of kanji use 工 as phonetic component and share the コウ (sometimes ク) onyomi reading: 功控攻江紅虹貢項
It makes it a lot easier to remember and sometimes even guess the reading of new kanji and words. The semantic component also sometimes help, but it’s a lot more hit-or-miss in my experience.
For instance at your level 11 you had 功 whose reading you could remember that way. And this way it also reinforces the reading of 工.
Thank you! Oh, I swear I saw a userscript for that a while ago when I was just starting WK and I decided not to install it for fear of overcomplicating things too early, but now I think I’m ready to look at phono-semantic composition of characters. I mean, the way you described it and with all those examples, this almost feels too good to be true, like some sorta kanji cheat code! Is this even allowed?
I’ll look for the script and try it in action, thank you so much! Now thinking of maybe adding a legend with the most common phono-semantic components into the map somewhere, hmm…
Over 90% of the characters used in modern written vernacular Chinese originated as phono-semantic compounds. However, as both meaning and pronunciation in the language have shifted over time, many of these components no longer serve their original purpose.
The caveat is of course even truer for Japanese. For example I mentioned 江 having the コウ onyomi, which is true, but in practice this character is almost always read with the kun え so it’s not super meaningful.
It’s still regularly useful, especially as you progress more and more because the probability that a new kanji will share a phonetic component with one you already know keeps increasing.
For instance a few days ago I decided to learn 躊躇 (ちゅうちょ, hesitation). The first kanji is weird and it’s the first time I encounter this complicated component, but the 2nd is just 足 + phonetic 著 and it shares the same ちょreading! It doesn’t get me all the way but it helps, and this way I get to reinforce my knowledge of the common-but-not-extremely-common 著 (I think I mostly encounter it with its 著しい kun reading).
