Perfect timing for this post! This morning I just burned all of my level 1 radicals. And if I hadn’t put in custom synonyms for most of them, I probably would’ve gotten most of them wrong. Why? I don’t remember them by either their mnemonic nor by the name WaniKani gives them.
For 一, named “Ground,” I added both “One” and “Ichi.” To me, “Ground” has a completely different kanji, so that particular mnemonic/name became completely relevant. By nature of how mnemonics are designed, if you keep a decently fast pace on WaniKani, you will definitely forget most of the radicals while remembering the readings of most of the kanji. I personally don’t use WaniKani’s mnemonics due to how much they “stretch” the pronunciation (or any mnemonics at all, except for leeches), but if they work for you, don’t be afraid to use them! I don’t remember the mnemonic I used to remember the order of the planets, but I do remember that Saturn was Spaghetti. Do I have to think of Spaghetti to remember Saturn? I hope not!
In the case of 川, sure, it’s fine to remember it by かわ, but it a confirmed fact by linguists and neurologists that after around the age of 12, it actually becomes impossible for you to learn a language without understanding it through your natural language(s). So, unless you are under that age, you have to use some English in order to grasp the fundamentals for Japanese. As you get more advanced, you’ll rely on it less.
Its damn hard I agree. I see the river because the Kanji is similar to the Hiragana for Ri with the mnemonic River.
I struggle with the mnemonics that are used because it is someone else’s brain that has come up with them. The Joseph Stalin one is a classic. It makes no sense to me but must have to the author who came up with it. For above and below I would have gone with something that happens in the bedroom other than sleep but that’s me LOL…
I think it pays to spend a lot more time on the readings and adapt the story to your own mind. Take the river one. I can see the banks of the river in my mind and the flow of the water in the middle. The author uses cows so I make a little movie in my head. There’s John Wayne heading down to the bank of the river with a herd of cows. Look at the flow in the middle of the river! Will he make it. He pushes the cows in and they swim through the middle and up the other bank. Wow - they made it. He looks at the cows and they are dripping from the water. He looks back, he sees the banks and the flow in the middle. Yeehaa - he is off!
Weird huh?. For me its the movie in my head that helps.
I’m pretty sure a lot of people here make their own mnemonics. There have been several threads where people mentioned not understanding words or people mentioned in them. I’m currently remembering that the standalone reading for Buddha 仏「ほとけ」 is that Buddhas eat too many hot cakes, and that’s why they’re fat. It works better for me than the supplied one, and I know I won’t remember the reading otherwise since “Buddha” is way too solidly in my head.
Does making your own mnemonic muck it up later on? IE: if the mnemonic is ‘crab’ and you make your own up say ‘donkey’ later on do the lessons rely on knowing ‘crab’?
Fortunately and unfortunately not, if you’re asking about if not using WaniKani mnemonics will muck things up. One of the big problems with WaniKani’s mnemonics is that they aren’t very consistent. While this is a bad point for those using the mnemonics, it also means you aren’t missing out much if you use your own. When it comes to making your own, you have to go with how you learn. I personally only make mnemonics with words that (to my knowledge) have a unique reading; in other words, I’ve never heard another word that is the same from that point. As a result, I don’t normally make mnemonics for On’Yomi, which are usually short and shared quite often.
How much a mnemonic you create yourself messes you up is up to you. I try to limit mnemonics to the usually more-exclusive Kun’yomi since the risk of overlap is lower (like my hot cake example). Picking a very specific term to replace a general On’Yomi like きょう could easily come back to haunt you if you’re not a creative person. If the WaniKani mnemonics don’t stick, however, you’re better off trying your own and failing then expending the effort to adapt to a system that you already found out doesn’t work well.
My primary memory solidification method is verbal recitation while practicing writing the kanji. Typically repeating a reading 100 times as I write it 100 times is enough to ingrain it. Though most people on here don’t prioritize practicing writing characters to my knowledge, as it’s the least useful skill compared to reading, listening, and speaking.
Although this approach takes more time, I have really solidified by knowledge by physically writing out the answers when using KaniWani. Forces me to remember the whole kanji, not just the reading and the rough shape.
Around level 8 I was starting to feel like I could recognize and somewhat read kanji I learnt in the wild, but so long as I didn’t truly know how to write it (i.e. what exactly all the details were) I felt I’d forget them soon enough.
To each their own! Mnemonics are amazing help when trying to write btw
I think the mnemonic are only part of the Wanikani program, the other key is SRS. the more I use the kanji, more familiar I become with it until the mnemonics become meaningless.
Hi there! I actually just started using WK yesterday, and I’m really glad this topic was made!
When I started last night, I felt a little bit of panic. Since I’ve taken two years of university Japanese in the past, I’m familiar with much of the material of level one. It felt really unnatural to look at the “エ” radical, for example, and think something as abstract as “construction” when I already recognize it as the “e” katakana. The idea of memorizing it as something so abstract (and does its meaning in kanji have anything to do with construction?) made me nervous! It seemed like a step backwards. That’s when I clicked on this post and read the responses.
When I saw the “女” radical, I just knew it was “onna” by sight. That’s the level OP says they want to achieve, and it’s a great goal! However, when reading this thread, I remembered the completely forgotten trick I used to memorize “女” in the first place! It’s embarrassing, but years ago, I think Naruto showed that the individual parts of “女” can be pulled apart to spell “くノ一” or kunoichi: female ninja. It’s not as abstract as “construction,” but it was a roundabout method I used to memorize what is now an instantly recognized character.
It’s interesting that we use these tricks naturally but become nervous about them anyway! For me, I think my expectations of myself as an adult who “should know everything already” clouded the usefulness of mnemonics. I forgot how to humbly be a beginner. That’s just me, though!
The kanji of that shape has the meaning of construction. Yes, it’s the same shape as the katakana, but it’s a different character. It’s a step toward reading kanji.
I’m completely aware of the difference between katakana and radicals! I was talking about in terms of learning as a beginner and already having ways of recognizing things that diverge from WK’s system. I didn’t know the mnemonic matches up with the actual meaning of that radical, though, as most university courses don’t teach kanji via a radical method. Its kanji, too, isn’t one I remember from the Genki system for years 1 and 2. You inspired me to look up its meaning, and apparently it’s related to craftsmanship. I’m so glad to learn something new!
Again, as someone who’s forced to slow down with the SRS system and just started less than 24 hours ago, I haven’t unlocked that particular kanji (or any kanji in the WK system, for that matter). I also did not assert that its meaning was different, as I posed that aside as a question. I also do not remember Genki covering this particular kanji in my two years of university, but I could just be forgetting!
Clearly, though, someone at 54 probably can’t remember what it’s like to be at level 1 and stuck waiting, so.
The radicals are just to help you remember mnemonics later on - they don’t have any real linguistic meaning.
The trick is to read each the mnemonic carefully when you do your lessons. If one doesn’t make sense or isn’t what you “see” in the kanji, then right away figure out a better one and type it in the notes section. (Newbie tip: You can add your own notes! )
For example I learned 少 (few) way back before WK and it always looks like a face to me.
WK says that 歩 (walk) = slide + small + stop. But I don’t see a small slide, I see the 少 (few) face wearing a 正 (stop) hat. So I picture that person walking around with their silly hat.
I’ve known river since before I knew Wanikani. No mnemonics. When I see 川 I see river (かわ). Likewise there are some kanji I have learnt since using WK that I now recognise, some I do a bit, and some that I really have to think back to the mnemonic to recall at this stage (and of course ones I don’t recall, or even remember seeing, at all!). There are also kanji where the visual structure is better than the mnemonic - indeed I use Kodansha’s Kanji Learner’s Course alongside WK as the mnemonics, explanations and visual cues are really good.
I personally don’t think there’s a better way for the majority of adult foreigners to learn the kanji and it’s a tried and tested method for those that remember huge lists competitively or for entertainment etc. Just go for it - you will see the benefits.
I never even read the mnemonics. With radicals, whose names in Wanikani are mostly arbitrary, I try to remember them just in order to get correct answers in the reviews, but not for much else. With kanji, I just look at the meaning, the reading(s) and the example words and sentences and try to remember that - I know I will, eventually. I don’t think it’s very useful at this stage to know WHY that kanji means what it means - I figure I’ll get to that when I get how things work, and hopefully from a Japanese source, not a simplified one made for English speakers.
It’s very easy to ignore the mnemonics and radicals during the first levels, since you have few kanji to remember and they’re mostly simple and visually distinctive. Later on you start to have very similar kanji in which only one radical is added or changed. Take a look at the kanji lattice: do you think you can memorise them all just by their general shape, not to mention the readings, in a little over one year?
There is no reason. WaniKani radicals are made up, yes, but Japanese radicals don’t work that way and the only reason to learn them is to look up kanji at physical dictionaries.
Exactly. I did not need mnemonics until level 20, but now they’re essencial to me. Someone might think they don’t need mnemonics because they’re learning everything pretty well, but sooner or later you’ll need them.
Why should one use mnemonics even when they don’t feel necessary:
Because they’ll eventually become necessary.
By starting from the beginning, you’re creating a healthy habit right from the very beginning. This means that you won’t feel as much troubled when you reach the level where mnemonics are needed for you.
Because kanji share the same readings a lot of times. If you create mnemonics about a certain sound from the very beginning, it will be easier to apply a similar mnemonic on a harder kanji later on.
I tend to use mnemonics for the most readings and kanji where the meaning doesn’t innately click in my head with the visual. I’m only level three but kanji I was learning in level one when coming up in reviews is just naturally sticking in my head, and the same goes for most of the readings, there is the occasional reading I still use the mnemonic for but these are ones I generally struggle with anyway. Usually by the time I’ve got something at guru I don’t need a mnemonic for the kanji and by the time it is mastered I don’t need one for the reading either (unless it is one I struggle with that I had correctly guessed repeatedly with what I feel is more luck than genuine recollection but something like that I will get wrong or learn eventually) this is why I really like the SRS, I start off struggling to recall meanings and readings and it just makes it start to become natural.
I actually just started using WK yesterday, and I’m really glad this topic was made!
