Radicals are frustrating

Welcome to the community, @cool_lamp!

If the mnemonics don’t work for you, then you can simply use WaniKani for the SRS and kanji/vocab. However, you may find that even if you usually don’t want to rely on radicals, they may help in specific instances with kanji that you have trouble remembering.

It’s up to you to determine the method that works best for you. People learn in all different kinds of ways.

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I see now, it really was just an in-the-moment frustration. I tend to get carried away by strong emotions like that. I apologize

edit: Also I posted this with the feeling I wouldn’t get any responses and I would be just screaming into the abyss, its kind of impressive to see such an active and supporting community really

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The thing with radicals, and the mnemonic stories, and them being silly. That’s an intentional design on their part. They wanted to make the stories memorable, so they made them silly, or dramatic, or shocking in some way for others.

In the beginning when there’s few items to memorize, it seems useless, but as you progress and unlock hundreds of new characters, you’ll find it helpful to differentiate them by their radicals. Look at 識 織 職 for example. If you’re just memorizing the kanji by their overall shape, you’ll have trouble with them, but you see the 言 糸 耳 radicals on the left and you can distinguish them a lot easier, especially if you committed the stories to memory.

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I was very much with you and your post :smiley: Without any deeper context that was hard to grasp what cool_lamp had on his mind. Especially that his original post sounded very pretentious. I think it was a proper reaction.
I’m just saying that because I felt bad for you when you said that you shouldn’t have commented on anything at all.

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They are the most important part of WK… and save up a lot of time. I use them to learn my Kanji outside of those here and they have been invaluable.
If you don’t mind spending a considerable amount of time, then you should come up with your own. There are too many, though.

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The community is the best part of Wanikani. Most of us are pretty chill, and there’s all sorts of interaction from book clubs for all levels to threads full of polls and all the gifs you could ask for. Best of all, even if you choose not to continue with the main part of Wanikani, the forums are still available whenever you have a question or need a resource.

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I mean, that’s kind of how mnemonic devices work. They’re SUPPOSED to be ridiculous, because it’s easier to remember that way.

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Second this advice. I use the mnemonics, but once I’ve practiced a kanji for a while I tend to forget them/ignore them. Really good for specific instances like Breadstick has said.

Some of the mnemonics are a bit of a stretch, so I understand your frustration.

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There’s also the fact that many new users come here with the impression that it’s just like twitter et al, not realizing that many of us strive to cultivate a more positive atmosphere

And yeah @cool_lamp the POLL thread is awesome

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I’d say maybe the good thing about WK mnemonics is the fact that there’s a consistent system, so you’ll always know what’s appearing in a kanji provided you remember the mnemonic. However, I’ve definitely seem some that really make no sense or that feel harder to remember than they should be. (I don’t use the SRS myself – I’m a Chinese speaker, and I don’t have any trouble reapplying whatever I did to learn readings in Chinese – but I’ve seen people discussing WK mnemonics.)

My personal preference for learning kanji is to use ‘real’ radicals (i.e. the sort that are listed in dictionaries) along with their actual meanings, plus etymology if I can find it and it makes sense. I try to make sure kanji, readings and meanings are all linked up. That aside, I also write the kanji out. If what you’re getting from WK doesn’t seem to help, you can try making your own mnemonics. If you want some examples of how I try to remember these things… I have a thread:
https://community.wanikani.com/t/non-wk-mnemonics/49513?u=jonapedia

Some of these mnemonics are ‘fake’ in the sense that I actually already knew the words well enough to not need help when I wrote those mnemonics, so I didn’t use them, but I try to maintain the same logic throughout. I probably don’t have many mnemonics for lower-level kanji, but I can try creating a few if you’d like more relatable examples. (I’m having my summer break right now – I’m a university student – so I can probably get that done.)

Whatever it is, I hope you find an approach that works for you see, be it on WK or off it. All the best. :slight_smile:

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mnemonics are just suggestions, you can make up your own mnemonics and also you can add synonyms, the site is not at fault here

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I would just like to point out that a good portion of the forums is people complaining (cathartically or otherwise). This OP wasn’t exactly out of character for the forums. Wanikani even labeled this forum with a suggested question of “Or, what do you hate the most about WaniKani?” What were you hoping to gain in responding to someone’s first post with a long bout of criticism?

Edit: I see now that others have provided similar feedback and you have reconsidered. Guess this was a learning experience for all of us!

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That’s good to know. Do new users know that? I didn’t.

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This is not a problem specific to WaniKani. The only thing unique to WaniKani in this respect is that WaniKani has non-traditional radicals like “clown” or “pope” or “lip ring,” and so when you fail it feels easier to blame them.

However, having dabbled with other kanji memorization systems, using traditional radicals only doesn’t really make the situation better.

What does make things better, or what makes things better to me, is to use the radicals to make up your own mnemonic stories. Or even make up your own radicals. These days I tend to try to make up a story to memorize a kanji first, then if I’m having trouble thinking of a good idea, I check the official mnemonic.

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i feel in that way as well back my first 10 levels. i rarely relied on radicals, but after the wall of first ten levels. it hella frustration when the kanji keep come up with the similar form, so radicals is life saver for that way.

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I honestly love mnemonics. It’s pretty much required to make sense of those weird lines for me. But two things are important to keep in mind imo. First if it’s like a long “story” you really don’t need to remember just like a few words / idea. Then I also don’t love some of the mnemonics. partly because they just don’t relate to me or I don’t understand some terms (not a native english speaker). I then use one that I come up with myself.

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EfBxib-X0AEc73o

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Actually the name is @cool_lamp

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Also want to mention that the end goal is to grow beyond the need to use mnemonics. They’re only there to help you start to put each individual item into your memory, and if you don’t need them at any point, then that’s great.

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@cool_lamp Here are a few I came up with today:
https://community.wanikani.com/t/non-wk-mnemonics/49513/51?u=jonapedia

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Let me say one thing: Stupid Mustache and Lip Ring :joy:

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