Ok so, I’ve reached lvl 13 atm after about 5-6 months. And I’ve had a few flaws since a while back but half ignored em or tried to look past them.
I very seldom use mnemonics, as in, I see a kanji / vocab and more just brute force it by learning the meaning and how it’s spelled (some easier than others) just by looking at it. But I’ve reached the point where there are multiple ones that look the same or they have certain kanji but they don’t use the spelling u would make out based on how it look.
The main flaw in this is that when there are multiple that look very similar, it gets hard to differentiate them “時 / 持 / 特 / 詩 / 侍” these for example.
So I guess what I’m asking for is a bit of help and views from you guys regarding mnemonics.
Do u always use em? Do u make out a mnemonics directly as u do the lesson of them and then stick with same ones, or do u change if one doesn’t work?
It’s a bit disheartening when u have something in “enlightened” and then u forget the meaning / spelling of it and it gets knocked down. I mean, I know it’s for a good cause since I do it to learn, so if I don’t remember it’s only obvious I would need to focus more effort and time on it. But it still makes me sad when it happens.
Also know I can technically “cheat” by refreshing the page when I get a word wrong and just redo it until I get it right, but that wouldn’t exactly help me in the end of the day either.
What helps me most in differentiating similar Kanji are not necessarily the mnemonics but the radicals these Kanji are made of. For excample 時 there is the sun radical at the front. What can you do with the sun? See what time it is!
持 has the finger radical, so you can hold stuff. 詩 has the speech radical, fitting for a poem.
I make single-sentence mnemonics easy to memorize:
時 – If you go to the SunTemple – it would take some time!
侍 – Leader of this temple must be a samurai
待 – Loitering near a temple is a good way to wait.
持 – The Fingerstemple will hold.
特 – The Cowtemple is special.
詩 – What you say in temple - is a poem.
寺 – Dirtmeasurement is required to build a temple.
等 – In the BambooTemple everyone is an equal.
痔 – In the sicktemple you can find piles of hemorrhoids.
I use mnemonics mostly for learning the kanji, and usually stick with the ones that come with the kanji. Some of them are not very good though, and in that case I make my own ones. After a while, you automatically recognise the kanji without requiring the mnemonic. This might not happen so quickly with more difficult kanji though. So yeah, you’ll probably have to start using them.
I will make a mnemonic during the lesson if I don’t like the one provided. I prefer my mnemonics to include both sound and meaning.
Often though, I’ll create a new mnemonic if I’m having trouble remembering something.
Pro-tips:
The point of a mnemonic is to be memorable, so if you’re stuck use at least one of: Sex, Violence or Surrealism. All three is best.
Use the same image for the same sound or meaning. For me きょ is always “Little Kyoto”, ie: A tiny model of buildings and streets.
Use Different images to help seperate things - For 人、じん is a big, loud person, にん is a small, quiet one
In a temple, there is sun dial with a brilliant hot sun, and it tells time.
Holding a bag in hands with fingers clinging around the strap.
Special Hindu temple, with a cow lying in front. What a holy cow!
Monks chanting a poem in a temple. A beautiful naturalistic poem.
The true leader, the true power holder of a temple. Like a chief samurai. (Otherwise, I might not think of the mnemonic, seeing the 亻 and I recall.) (btw, I don’t think this one is very common.)
All in all, in these cases, it’s only left side that matters to differentiate. So say, pay attention to radicals.
tbh, I’ve sorta been slacking on the radical parts.
In the beginning (first 10 levels) I did em faithfully just like any kanji and vocab, but after some point I started to “cheat” with the radicals as I didn’t see them as “important” to know the name of.
My thinking went something like, since the names of em won’t come up in any way other than trying to memorize kanji, then I might as well just skip em and focus more energy on the kanji themselves.
So for the last few levels I always double checked em before marking em off so I would unlock all the kanji faster and advancing levels (not the greatest mindset for sure, since levels don’t matter, what u learn and memorize is what matters)
Radicals are super useful to know in my opinion. Even if you’re skipping mnemonics, just knowing the radicals can help you pick them out in a kanji and piece together the meaning from them, in some situations. And then when you’re stuck looking at kanji that look similar, you can look at the radicals on the deeper level instead. Then you will be able to pick out that one kanji has a sun and a temple, and another has fingers and a temple, for example, which gives you more of a concrete difference to think about rather than the shapes of the kanji looking similar.
Yea, I’ve realized that mistake. And already started correcting it (as I had some radicals pop up just now).
I think the main fault with me is that I unconsciously see “level up” as “step closer to finish line” rather than just as a way to get new stuff to learn.
And that causes me to try to hurry it up to get next level faster rather than taking the time to make sure I really understand everything.
Wanikani is a marathon, and while some people can manage it quickly, I think it’s beneficial to take your time with it. Going too just gives me an overwhelming amount of reviews. It’s hard to feel the effect of the speed at first because there’s less items in the review circulation. But yeah I guess if you rush too much, if you then stop being able to differentiate between kanji as effectively, then that may ultimately slow you down in the long run.
It went great at first, but then I started stumbling more n more (and doing em when I was tired just to cut down on the reviews didn’t help) and now when I checked the 1w ahead it’s around 800-900 reviews, and daily it’s between 200 and 300.
So ye, prob will be beneficial for me to just accept this ain’t something I will be able to “complete” within 1-2 years and just take my time with it to better understand it.
As much as I wanna be able to say “I managed to learn it all in record time” that just ain’t happening, and I ain’t bright enough to be able to see most radical / kanji / vocab once and know em for life.
Yeah, that’s totally fine and normal I think, I mean I’ve been here for about a year and a half I think, and I’m only level 19. I do think I am particularly slow compared to many others, but it’s okay, cause at least I’m learning and I’ll get there in the end.
This is initially difficult, your brain has not yet learned to recognise kanji. You can help it by noticing things about the kanji, often the radicals, and it will get there in the end.
時 - this has the sun/day radical, so it’s about time.
持 - this has the fingers radical, to it’s about using your hands to hold something
特 - this has the cow radical for some reason, so must be special
詩 - this has the say radical, so must be about talking
侍 - this has the person (not leader) radical hanging around outside a temple, probably waiting for someone to kill.
Learning the mnemonics helps a little in differentiating similar kanji. But you know what it REALLY helps with? Producing the kanji from memory when it’s not shown to you. Like if you’re writing. I went back and re-read a lot of mnemonics for that reason.
I do the same thing. Simple and succinct phrase or sentence, the shorter the better (usually 7 or 8 words max). Generally mine are just a condensing/rephrasing of the provided ones, or based on/inspired by them as I want to keep the re-use of recurring characters/ideas/words for sounds (e.g. Little Kyoto for きょ) that they use intact.
I am one of those thinking that the mnemonics are super useful. I always use them for kanjis and they really help cementing the meaning and readings. After a while they fade away but the kanji gets internalized even without them.
To your examples, the radical make it clear to me what each of these are and the mnemonics associated with it (the finger radical for “hold” sweet “ji”-sus, etc…)
Overall, WK mnemonics work well for me, although I occasionally find my own for kanjis that just don’t stick otherwise (usually that becomes apparent if I fail them at Master/Enlightened stage). I know it’s painful to have them go down, but I see it as a blessing to really focus my efforts on the tough ones (think about all those that are getting burned!).
Note: I always cheat my way up to Guru as I can’t memorize all kanjis until then; but I fail them as they come once they reached guru level once.
You can of course brute force kanji learning, but I think you would most likely go slower and have not much to remember them on longer term. Keep in mind also that there will be a LOT of kanjis looking alike over time.
I’ve definitely noticed many similar looking ones (those from main post for example). But also the “husband” and “jet” radicals was a huge pain for me, cause they are nearly identical.
(I did solve those two by imagining a *ick-less husband and a jet that spew out flames)
But ye, as u and many others here have said, will most likely learn em easier if I can see more a story with em rather than just “bruteforce” em. Some get stuck easy on one look, but then when they come back later and there are more kanji that look the same, I end up failing em.
Only thing that gonna be a pain is to read up and memorize (or add my own) mnemonics for the ones I’ve already done.
I didn’t see anyone else mention this, but I could just be missing it:
One of the very most important reasons to know which radicals go into which kanji is to look words up. Imiwa, Jisho, etc. all have a section where you can look up radicals and see which kanji they are used in, and find a word you may not know. If you don’t the difference between the 手 and 毛 or 土 and 士 it’s a lot harder to look up an unknown kanji.
This has saved my A$$ a time or two when texting with some of my Japanese friends and I have to quickly look up a word or two.