What are some patterns you've noticed in kanji?

WaniKani
#1

Patterns that aren’t exactly highlighted in the lessons or derive their meaning from their radicals.

For example, kanji that contain 月 are body parts, such as 肺(lung)、腹(stomach)、腕(arm)、脳(brain). Another example: kanji containing 复are typically read as ふく (side note: these are easy for me to remember because the mnemonic for this is f**k :rofl: ). While not universal of course, these little patterns are a wonderful additional help during reviews when I can’t remember the mnemonic.

I’ve seen some of them may be mentioned as one-off in hints sometimes, but not in every entry that follows a certain pattern.

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#2

What you’re noticing are semantic and phonetic components. :slight_smile:

This script is good for pointing out phonetic components by the way:

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#3

Aye, there are indeed such patterns.

The reason the radical 月 indicates body parts is because as a radical it’s also a variant of 肉. Covergent etymology, kind of thing.

And yeah, some radicals tend to lend their reading to kanji - for example, kanji with the radical 工 are quite frequently read as こう. There’s a userscript that highlights when these occur - it’s here

Edit: Oh noes. Leebo’d.

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#4

Only half Leebo’d because I forgot the explanation for the entomology of the 月 part.

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#5

Ah, I primarily use my mobile device for all WK reviews and lessons, so I can’t make great use of that script. But the script looks great! Maybe I should start doing lessons on my computer from now on. :thinking:

#6

If you use Android, there’s a way to use scripts on Firefox!

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#7

Nope, iOS and it’s a native app. It has some functionality from userscripts bundled in, but the semantic-phonetic component isn’t one of them.

(I think my discourse is broken, trying to type “moon”, but after one character, my text box loses focus). I checked out that script, but it doesn’t mention anything about moon being a character for body parts.

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@Belthazar your explanation or it being a variation of “meat” makes a lot of sense :astonished: (I think I’ve heard that somewhere before).

#8

It’s probably worth installing on your computer just for reference. The information shows up during lessons and reviews, but it also shows up on the kanji pages so you can reference it whenever you want.

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#9

That may be because it’s not moon 月 but “meat moon”


That being said, the link above is using the same character for both, so I don’t know :thinking:

Edit: if I even read my own links…

現在では同じ字形を用いる。

Nowadays, both “moon” and “meat moon” are represented with the same kanji.

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#10

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