Question about radicals

WaniKani Requesting Help
1

I noticed on some other websites that the names you give to some radicals are different, for example, enclose on other sites is listed as to wrap, and cross is ten

Is the naming of the radicals important, or is it your prefered naming method, and will this difference effect kanji learning.

Im a bit confussed so please answer.

Thanks alot.
Dwarfduder

2

WK uses the word radicals because it’s familiar to people, but it’s used kind of loosely here. The “true” radicals consist of a specific set of 214 (I believe), and each kanji only contains one. They are used for looking up kanji in dictionaries.

There are no official names in English, so you will see different names in different sources. Even in Japanese, some radicals have multiple names.

What WK calls radicals are probably better thought of as “kanji parts”. And their names exist for the purpose of building mnemonics, something that Japanese native speakers don’t do when learning kanji.

2 Likes
3

For here, it is admin’s preferred naming.

As far as I know, there are only official naming with Kangxi radicals. There are several hundred more, that is non-Kangxi.

AFAIK, there is never official names for Kanji ‘parts’. However, it is widely used in several electronic Japanese dictionaries, like Jisho.org.

1 Like
4

Thanks for your answer.

5

Thanks for your reply makes sense now

6

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.