Skipping radicals (probably for the 100,000th time already)

WaniKani Tips & Tricks
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Interesting discussion, I think I’ll use the kanji 福 as an example to show my way:
(Not saying that all Chinese do it this way, but it’s what I learned in school.)

  • The left part is the radical 示, written as 礻when used as radical, indicating god/spirit.
  • The right part 畐, a kind of vessel, now no longer used. Here is indicates the reading of the whole character.
  • If a Chinese native speaker doesn’t know this character, they could describe it like this: “radical 示 on the left, the number one + mouth + rice paddy on the right”.

Another example: 脂 (level 51):

  • The left part is 月, means moon, but as a radical it’s “meat-moon”, indicates meat or body part.
  • The right part 旨, as a stand-alone character it has many meanings, like oder of the emperor, or deliciousness. Here it also indicates the reading.
  • WK calls 匕 on the upper right “spoon”, in Chinese it’s the character for “dagger”. If a Chinese speaker doesn’t know this character, they could either describe like this: “月 for radical, 旨 on the right.” Or “radical 月 on the left, dagger + sun on the right.”

As shown, some are the same as the WK mnemonics, some not. Those that are not, is extra busywork for me, like卜 for “toe”, 八 for “fins” and 一 for “ground”…in my eyes they are radish, the number eight and the number one. And the WK system is actually quite similar to what I’ve described here, only with different radical names. All I’m trying to do is skip learning the names…because why learn something twice?

As for simplified and traditional Chinese…I often got asked this question. Normally I use simplified Chinese characters (Mandarin), but I can read traditional Chinese characters fluently. You CAN read the traditional counterparts, because they bear enough similarities for you to recognise, all you need is bit practice (and yes, guessing from the context). I think with some practice, Japanese speakers should also be able to recognise the simplified counterparts. I read lots of Japanese mangas growing up, which are imported by Taiwanese publishers and hence translated into traditional Chinese characters, that’s how I “practiced” :joy: I can’t write traditional characters though.

The on reading is similar to Chinese, but there’s no use if it’s only “similar”, so my emphasis is really on the on and kun readings, and the usage in a vocab to prevent forgetting too quickly. Since I can’t find a good tool for Chinese speakers, I have to work with what I can find :joy:. WK provides a very systematised way of studying, which I find very helpful. Additionally, I also use self made Anki deck to study kanjis that are required in my Japanese course.

One last thing: I’m neither saying which method is better, nor questioning WK’s method. Learning radicals IS important and a method is good as long as it fits you. There’s some confusion in the thread so I thought I better provide some examples, maybe it could help clarify things. :slight_smile:

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42

Thank you for the detailed explanation!! I really enjoyed reading it, for example about the meat moon. So when it’s in that location it’s usually a body part? Super interesting!!

Have the kanji readings been very surprising for you until now? Or are they usually similar?

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Hi Amelia_W, welcome to WK.
I’ll give my opinion and advice (briefly, I hope) even though there are far more expert members here. BTW isn’t there any Chinese member who could tell of their experience??

  1. WK teaches both the meanings and (main) reading using a story that gives you a word. For example look up this radical:
    WaniKani / Kanji / 軽
    You end up with a story (—> word “lightweight”) and a related story (—> word “car” —> 「かる」.
  2. Let’s assume you know all the meanings already. Most here use WK for the second story that gives you a reading (often on’yomi, sometimes kun’yomi).
Unless...

Unless you know also most of the on’yomi from Chinese. I know nothing of Chinese, so I don’t know. That would change things, and you would be using WK as a very solid SRS but nothing more.

  1. If you don’t know the “WK radicals” the second story would probably be useless.
  2. You would have to create yourself a mnemonic using your (chinese/real) radicals for all the kanji to remember this reading. A good idea, but it’ll take a lot of time.
  3. In case you can’t tell all/most of the meanings already, you would have to create your own mnemonics even for the meanings. That’s ~4000 mnemonics (not counting the vocab).

My advice is:

A) If you know meanings and most readings already, skip the radicals and create mnemonics for the exceptions only. —> WK would be to you just a SRS system (a very good one, but I personally would not pay just for that)

B) If you know most of the meanings, but no readings (or too few), you can skip the radicals but you’'ll have to create mnemonics for all/most of the readings. —> Personally I would just adapt. Just keep the “fake WK radicals” separated in your mind from yours. Learning the radicals per se is less than 1% of all the work WK requires.

C) If you know only a few meanings/readings (say 20% of the total), go the WK way and learn all radicals.

Keep in mind that:
The team who made WK had the American audience as a target. There may be better ways for Chinese people.
(Someone will say “international” and not “American/English speakers”…well, I don’t really agree. I didn’t know what the Ritz hotel was, what’s a “cleat” or a “yart” or some other cultural/language things. I’m European maybe I’m just ignorant…) Surely a better system could be created for the Chinese.

Curiosity: I’ve heard of people totally skipping the mnemonics (I think Kanji too) and using WK as just a SRS so while I don’t advise option A, some people are satisfied with it.

Forgive me for being anything but brief. :sweat_smile: And for my answer being limited since I know nothing of the Chinese language…

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44

Sorry for adding more. :pray:
I don’t really understand these two parts. I do understand that you can use your radicals (BTW very similar to ours) to describe the kanji as we do but your description lacks a story…. if you see the radicals for “moon/meat”, “dagger” and “sun” can you get to the meaning “fat” and/or the reading 「し」 without any story? Just by recognizing the group of radicals? (description)
And more importantly can you do it for most of the kanji or are these just exceptions?

In the end you can check a level, say level 30, can you guess the meanings/readings of all or most of the kanji? How many did you get right? If that number is low you’ll have to create mnemonics.
And I’m afraid you are underestimating the time and effort to create 4000 stories you can remember. The most efficient choice depends on the exact amount. (25/32?) (7/32?)
While you can try WK till lv 3, the kanji in those level are too easy to give you a good idea.

Finally, IMO few people use the vocab mnemonics (I haven’t until now…if there’s a weird/new reading I’ll just repeat it until I own it. Also most of the readings are free i.e. just combination of the kanji reading or heard somewhere before) so focus on the Kanji when you decide.

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I really like the WaniKani so far, the pacing is very relaxed in my opinion, especially with all the set backs due to failed kanji or even radical… that being said the vocabulary is really nice and luckily you can progress without mastering it:) But with all those reviews before you master next level radicals and kanji it might be hard not to learn bunch of vocabulary that keeps repeating.

I have dedicated a lot fo my free time in the first levels to learn hiragana and katakana…you will need to know those really well.

PS: I am also trying Kanji garden app, it does not teach the vocab much and only touches on the radicals, but imho does a good job on dealing with the kanji and all possible readings. You can learn as much kanji as you want every day, but be vary of the amount of reviews you get, since they come up every minute for a kanji you keep failing…I sometimes get stuck i na review loop for an hour before I remember all…only to be surprised by alternate reading and start again:) I also believe that multiple methods are better than just one, though it tends to be more expensive:) Either way good to see your options before you commit to one.

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It does on some levels.

What? They accept multiple names for some specifically because the names kind of evolved organically from people calling them descriptive, meaningful things. The Kanken does not invent radical names…

Japanese people are aware of the most common names even if they never take Kanken.

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48

Youre looking at it from the opposite direction. A Japanese person would have the meaning already when learning how to write it. They already know あぶら and moon dagger sun would be their “story” to how its written.

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*Simplified Chinese characters
I wrote on that above.

okay, so they’re chosen by a company, but made up by people. still, i think it’s a bad system. if you like it and want to do the Kanken, that’s fine.

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You keep saying that as if it was designed for mnemonics and fails to achieve that goal…

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for what goal do you think it was made then? it was made for an 18th century chinese dictionary.
So, what relevance does it have today? You can look up Kanji by radicals in paper dictionaries and you can score points on the Kanken.

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Not sure what your point is… it was made for dictionary categorization, and it serves that purpose. Whether or not you can use it for something entirely different isn’t really relevant to whether it serves its purpose as intended.

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i don’t know what your point is, either.
From my very first comment, my argument was that WK’s radicals serve for excellent mnemonics, and are probably worth it for chinese native speakers for non-simplified characters and readings.
You just keep saying that the “official” japanese radicals are more authentic and less nonsense, which i argued is not important. By the way, that their purpose is dictionary categorization is also irrelevant to whether they are better or worse for studying with WK than WK’s radicals and their names.

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I’ve never said that this person should be using Japanese radical names… I said I don’t know how Chinese people learn radicals.

Comments about the Japanese radical names came in response to those implying there basically are “no” names.

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I can’t speak for Leebo, but what I’m saying is that Japanese people know those radicals by specific names, even if just by convention, and Chinese people know them by different names and may have a different set, and Wanikani has a whole other set that’s a superset of the other two and come up with their own names, and that’s the point I’m trying to make that Wanikani calling them “radicals” just leads to confusion.

Everything’s nonsense. Even most English is nonsense. Ever wondered why we say “how come?” I just wondered that last night, and I still haven’t figured it out.

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i argued exactly that, a bit earlier.
I think “How come” is basically “where does it come from” (meaning how did it happen that … came to be), just in an abstract way.

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However, some nonsense is more nonsense than others. :slight_smile:

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Yeah, i think the “official” radicals are more nonsense than WK’s radicals ^^

59

Just because?

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no, i gave ample reasoning in this thread. They use the same name for different radicals, so you can’t recall their names if you want to recall a Kanji’s mnemonic and know which shapes you need exactly.
There’s only one “main” radical per kanji.
They’re from a 18th century chinese dictionary. Not surprising that we’ve made pedagogic advances. Etc etc.
I know you will say that it’s not made for mnemonics. Again, if it’s only useful for paper dictionaries and the Kanken, it’s not much use.

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Okay, yeah, we’re going in circles. What were those Kangxi folks thinking when they made a system that couldn’t work with WaniKani. Clearly it’s nonsense.

Have a good one.