tl;dr - There is no reference link between e.g. the cheap kanji and the cheap radical. I believe there should be.
Often times a radical is introduced long after the kanji. E.g. the cheap radical is L22, while the cheap kanji is L6.
The radical does not list the kanji as a “found in”. Presumably this is because the kanji is made up of other radicals (roof and woman). But, it’s still not ideal for the use case of reviewing old mnemonics. 99 times out of 100, I’d say: don’t change old mnemonics or structure. But in this case, if there is now a radical with the identical construction of that kanji… then the kanji should be composed 100% of that radical (and the radical should contain the pictorial mnemonics of the sub-radicals).
E.g. when the radical comes first, and you get the kanji later (aka the most common case), the two contain references to each other. Which means if you have forgotten the radical mnemonic when you get the kanji, you can quickly click the linked radical to go back to that older lesson. You cannot do this with the example above (instead you need to manually search for the kanji). This behavior seems like it should be changed. A simpler solution (if the linkage is not technically possible due to the inverted chronological order) would be to just repeat the mnemonic logic in the description of the radical.
I’d also appreciate a link to the old kanji in such radical page. It actually already happened to me in the past that the original kanji was weak in my memory and I needed the refresh.
Presumably you already know the kanji. OK, maybe you forgot a bit, but you have been exposed and at least guru’d it. When it comes up again, and you still don’t know it, it will be demoted.
And searching is quite easy: just copy and paste into the search bar above.
Of course it’s easy. But it’s even easier to do what the other 98% of the items do and maintain a real static link between kanjis and radicals that are used together. And it’s consistent within the WK system, which was my point.
Personally, I don’t mind a little effort if it’s a kanji I forgot.
My pet peeve has been the “need” to learn radicals that
1 - were invented by Wanikani AND
2 - are neither real radicals (=those used in kanji dictionaries) nor real kanji.
They annoy me because it seems that they are “taking up space in my brain” for something I won’t ever need.
Since I started addressing my pet peeve by user synonyms, I’ve relaxed a bit though.
True, it’s by design. But I still don’t like the cases where WK takes a common “real” radical (=radical used in kanji dictionaries) and gives it a new name. For example, “water” is “tsunami” in WK and “tasseled spear” becomes “drunkard”.
But I would also say that using kanji that you already know (or at least SHOULD already know) as radicals is also by design. Since you already know the kanji, there is no need to repeat the mnemonics etc. In fact, you should eventually get away from the mnemonics anyway and just know the kanji. The mnemonics are just a (highly useful) stepping stone.
That said, besides the pet peeves, yours and mine, WK does make learning kanji easier.
I don’t think it’s clear that is true. The core design element of WaniKani (and the kanji system) is that radicals are building blocks which compose kanjis, and kanjis are building blocks which compose vocab.
Other than the exceptional case I am pointing out, the hierarchical links between these blocks are always maintained as static links in the index. For any given kanji, you can see what radical it is composed of, and what vocab words it composes (and you can navigate through the graph via these links). I am pointing out a glaring inconsistency, and I see no evidence that this inconsistency is by design.
First of all, I’m not asking anybody to repeat anything. I’m asking for consistency in the hierarchical graph index. Second of all, if we didn’t have to repeat things that we “learned already”… none of of would be doing SRS in the first place.
And it’s not just about mnemonics. Often when I get a new vocab word, I like to refresh my memory (again because it’s not perfect as you are suggesting) by (a) exploring/reviewing the kanjis it’s composed of then (b) exploring/reviewing the radicals those are composed of. I.e. drilling down the hierarchy tree. And at the bottom of that tree, I can answer the inverse question about what other higher level items these low level items are used in. That drilling down is made harder with the missing link I’m referring to (yes, of course I know I can use the search bar… that’s not my point, and pointing it out is pointless).
I think both cases/annoyances (1 “invented” non-standard radicals for me and 2 the assumption that you ought to know most of the kanji-as-new-radical by the time they are introduced for you) are “by design” and thus unlikely to be changed.
At least for me, the annoyance is minor enough so I’ll keep going. (I do hope that none of the kanji that I tend to confuse with other similar kanji gets used as a “kanji-as-radical” though. That’d be a frustration.)
Anyway, I just leveled up a few minutes ago, so I’m currently a happy camper.