This is important. I’m noticing lately that my brain totally chooses to interpret a new kanji by dividing it into separate kanji (when it’s possible), instead of using the radical version. This way, I get to reinforce the identification of both the new and old kanji.
1 Like
well, the problem with “one” is it’s not that memorable, and hard to imagine. Same with all numbers. But, there’s plenty of others where it actually helps overall to match the meanings of the radical and kanji more than it hinders. What happened originally is when we were making wanikani we didn’t exactly know what kanji we would teach by the end of it, and were writing it, and choosing items, level by level. Now that we have the big picture we can go back and say “this radical meaning relates to the meaning of X% of the kanji its in” (in the mnemonics), so we can change the meaning of the radical known it’ll benefit people with more kanji than before.
7 Likes
Makes sense. The more mnemonics I get to that use “ground”, the more that one sticks as to why you went with it. I still yelled for a minute, tho.
1 Like
Don’t really agree with this. One of the first things one expects to learn right at the beginning of their language journey is the numbers. The fact that 1 is just a 一 makes it way easier. So, that might be the case for other languages, but for Japanese… guess not 
2 Likes
I think he means more where it fits into mnemonics. It’s easier for something to stick when it comes out of the ground, it’s a little harder when you’re trying to remember “well, there’s only one of it…”
Yeah, I got that… But how hard it is to fit 1 into mnemonics?
Examples:
上.
Official mnemonic: There’s a toe above ground.
Using one: There’s 1 toe.
並
Official mnemonic: You stick horns in the ground using them as spikes and you line up the horns in a straight line.
Using one: You have 1 pair of horns and one pair of spikes lined up…
昼
Official mnemonic: The sun rises from the ground, and on top of it is a giant shrimp.
Using one: One day (see what I did here?), the shrimp decided to catch some sun at noon.
What do you think? 
I just made this up.
2 Likes
Think about it in regards to mnemonics though. If you used one then you’d have to go with things like “one duck” which isn’t very interesting. But if you went with ground you could go with “the duck slammed into ground and turned to goo”. One has much more impact. Pun.
5 Likes
I mean, it can be done, there’s no denying that. I just agree with @Borx in that using ground has more impact for an interesting story. But I think sometimes ‘one’ can be the better way to go, like with your ‘one day’.
Different perspective 
I know that having an impact is good (trust me, some of my mnemonics are probably illegal) That doesn’t mean that we should over complicate a mnemonic when we can still produce impact while keeping the meanings more close to the original. We also have to take into account that there’s 2 mnemonics for each kanji: meaning and reading. Only the meaning is based on the use of radicals so you have plenty of space to go crazy in the reading. Actually, this is where you should actually go crazy because readings are constantly being repeated. Having the main story be focused on the reading is more important.
Also, I’m not complaining about WK’s work. Not at all. I don’t use WK mnemonics, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t admire their work in that field.
1 Like
I suppose one could equal “a” or “an” - so, basically it turns it into a non-factor in the mnemonic.
One duck is the same as a duck. So, I guess the question is, should ー be ignored (essentially), or is it more useful as ground. I don’t have an answer to that because I’d have to look at all the kanji with ground in it (and we probably will at some point in the next months anyways, so I’ll keep this in mind), but I will say off the top of my head, I do like it when things are under the ー. For some reason those tend to be quite memorable for me and make good stories. Above ground, yeah - it becomes (again) sort of a non-factor, because things are usually above ground, so it won’t stick out as interesting or special. Though, it does give the opportunity to stab things into the ground, or put things into the ground. One things that would make this better is as we’re going through and revising mnemonics, making sure that the position of the radical items above the ground are above the ground, and the ones below the ground are below the ground, and work that into the story.
Anyways, Making “ー” a non-factor by turning it into “one” or “a” or “an” also makes sense when I think about it after reading your argument. So, definitely will give it a thought as we revise mnemonics and try to come up with the answer that’s best for the greater good… the greater good…
9 Likes
Admittedly, when a WaniKani mnemonic hasn’t worked for me and I went to come up with my own, I have discounted a simple radical like ground when I thought I could arrive at the information without it. I don’t envy the content team when they have to come up with mnemonics. Ya’ll have a lot to consider that would make it hard to do, I imagine.
5 Likes
It’s a shame you couldn’t use ‘itchy’ (ichi) duck.
Well, maybe you could if you fudge the rules for radicals a little.
Hey… Koichi, you should write your own Rules For Radicals book. (political pun)
4 Likes
That sounds like a good idea but also like something I really really don’t want to have to do, haha.
2 Likes
Yeah, I think that’s the way to do it - another thing we’re going to do is make this easier for people to do, too, so hopefully more people get on board with the “this mnemonic didn’t work for me, but that’s okay, I made one that did work for me because I work in an itchy duck factory so itchy ducks are really relatable in my memory” strategy.
8 Likes
I actually thought the same thing a while back. I said:
“I think the radicals are pointless and don’t help at all and I always assign an alternate meaning to ‘a’ so I can quickly and painlessly skip them every time. I wish I could just turn the radicals off completely.”
I stopped using WaniKani for a while since I live here in Japan and just used what was around me instead. But now I am looking to get back into actual Kanji study and I’ll give radicals a shot again because I DO know that they help with ‘reading’ when you see a Kanji and you don’t recognize it you can often gain an idea of either the meaning or reading simply by recognizing what radicals are there (the ones with “machting” Kanji as you said, the meanings and readings are often applied to complex looking Kanji that use those radicals).
This would make me so happy.
2 Likes
Niiice. Would you consider some level-appropriate reading practice? Little stories or essays labeled WK-level-10, WK-level-20 etc?
4 Likes
100% agree with this, I first registered for WK back in 2016 before I ever seriously tried learning any kanji. Back then, WK seemed so pointless (why does it force me to wait 24 hours for the next lesson? why do I have to learn these stupid radicals?). So I went a year trying other things (anki, memrise, other apps) and failed time and time again.
Around May 2017 I decided to go back to WK again and it has been amazing, I learned more in a month than I did in that entire year. Now kanji actually feels manageable.
3 Likes
Ha. I ruined my first few master items this way and boy, did it feel bad. Thanks getting this specific feedback over to Koichi.
1 Like
Oh, since we are sharing our own experience as well, there’s one thing I want to mention:
Even after coming back to WK, I was pretty much on the fence about buying a subscription or not. My first experience (back in 2012) was pretty similar to that of OP, I guess.
What really changed my mind was reading the mnemonic for 慶 (thanks to some screenshot I randomly came across). That was one of the kanji I always had trouble remembering when I was learning with other tools (I kept confusing it with 憂). I read the story once, and that was it. Suddenly it stuck, and I’m now even able to write it. (Plus I didn’t feel learning “barb” was pointless anymore… I had trouble with that radical because it’s not a word I am familiar with.)
What I want to say is that, even though the guide, people, and low level kanjis explain the point of radicals and mnemonics, it was only when I saw them in action in a non trivial situation. As such, @koichi, would it be possible to let free levels (1-3) have a look at, say, 0.5% of the higher level kanjis so that they can see for themselves how it turns out later on? I feel it really helps to understand better the whole point of the system.
2 Likes