Today, the Kanji 片 is taught only as “One-Sided.” Out of the 7 vocabulary words it is used in, this only seems to help with 2 of them: 片手 (One-Handed) and 片道 (One-Way). For everything else, though, “Fragment” seems like a much better way of remembering it:
片言 (Broken Language) → Fragment(ed) Language
片〜 (Fragment) → Fragment ~
片仮名 (Katakana) → Fragment(ary) Kana
破片 (Fragment) → Tear + Fragment
片隅 (Corner) → Fragment + Corner
It even still works for the other 2 examples:
片手 (One-Handed) “If you have a Fragmented Arm, then you can only use the other arm, making you One-Handed”
片道 (One-Way) “On a Fragmented Road, you can only go One-Way.”
I think at the very least, “Fragment” should be added as one of the meanings, if not the main one.
This looks more like a translation issue than a kanji meaning issue. In such case I would just add a user synonym . At least that’s what I did in my case when I was learning that kanji.
So the content team got back to us and they decided to add “Fragment” as an alternate meaning and kept “One Sided” as the primary so it lines up with the radical.
They mentioned that the Kanken Kanji Dictionary has “one sided” (① かた、かたほう) listed as the first meaning, with “fragment” (② きれ、きれはし、かけら) as the second, while Shinjigen and Kanjikai list it the other way around so they both seem to be just about equally important meanings.
Please note we also added ‘a few words’ as a possible meaning for 片言 as well as a context sentence.
. At least that’s what I did in my case when I was learning that kanji.