Radical Review Too Long

For kanji there is always a page in the lessons that shows all the radicals used, along with their names in WK, and the mnemonic is marked by a blue box in the meaning explanation. If you forget the radical name you can repeat it every time you need it.

But if you actually forgot it, that particular WK radical is not good for you. The idea is to physically see something (like a drawer) in the radical shape instead of thinking of a concept (“this means mother”). The drawer however is the prime example in WK where they should use mother instead anyway, because the kanji is so basic that many people will see mother directly.

On the other hand, I think using cross for 十 instead of ten is good, because you actually see a cross without thinking too much about it. And with ten, there are would be other number radicals that would interfere with your memory. [Oftentimes 十 inside a kanji doesn’t mean ten anyway.]

2 Likes

Kanji that use kanji as radicals are an easy win.
You got the strokes and reading of those already in memory, and seeing words made up of these will show you where which reading is used.
Some of them you’ll probably already know, too, or have heard pronounced somewhere, which then is 一石二鳥 - you just picked up a new word and a reading, and both reinforce each other.

This worked for me with 黒人、白人 and 紅白歌合戦.

It’s the main reason I skip most mnemonics and radicals altogether. Things just naturally sort themselves out over time. The more you learn, the more sense things make without artificial help.
Learning new kanji at lvl 60 must be wonderful, even just glancing over them in a text, then seeing them elsewhere again. Like an avalanche.

That was how I learned English by the way, I just played a lot of games, which are mostly in English. The boost this gave me, on top of the English lessons at school, was considerable.

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