Why triceratops radical?

Im already trying to memorize a lot of stuff. Now on top of that i need to learn this non existing stupid long word. This is the kind of thing that makes me wanna blow up the whole planet. Humanity should just give up if they do this kind of things. So why did someone do this? What are the pedagogic reasons behind this? Is this whole site just a joke?

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The pedagogic reasons is that itā€™s very easy to remember this radical as triceratops. Because it looks like one:

No. But it uses jokes to help memorization and it works great for many people.

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Well thanks. I must apologize for flipping off. Didnā€™t know about dinosaur. I just noticed i can add synonyms myself so i can change radicals that are not to my liking. This still doesnā€™t seem to be traditional japanese radical name enough to my liking.

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LOL! Boy am I glad you realized you flipped the hell out and calmed yourself down. Blow up the whole planet? Yikes.

How can you not know what a triceratops is?! :open_mouth: Have you never seen the Land Before Time? OMG, am I old? Is that not even a relevant thing any more?

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Woah, this went from 0 to ā€œCalm down a little bitā€ in a blink of an eye.
Like @trunklayer has said, itā€™s existing word, but maybe not one you are familiar with. As a Polish person I have to use dictionary here and there but this is just win-win situation. Not only Iā€™m learning Japanese but also English words I didnā€™t know.

And back to this unfortunate Triceratops. For me this radical always looked more like Stegosaurus :wink:

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Yeah, I understand how you feel, but the thing is traditional Japanese radical names werenā€™t intended to be used as a memorization helping. They were made solely for classification purposes. Thus WaniKaniā€™s radical names are often different from the official ones (not to mention that WaniKani has many unofficial radicals too). WaniKaniā€™s radicals are much better suited for mnemonics than the official ones.

In other words, WaniKaniā€™s radicals by itself arenā€™t part of the Japanese. Itā€™s strictly an internal WaniKani tool. However, they are a tool that helps greatly in learning kanji which are part of Japanese.
Itā€™s like with buying a LED light bulb - it might seem like an unnecessary waste of money, as an incadescent costs much less, but in the long run it would save you much more money.
Learning WK radicals requires some effort, which might seem unnecessary, but it would save you much more effort when you study kanji.

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That was one of the most favorite cartoons of my childhood!

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Iā€™ve literary known the whole movie! My mom told me when I was watching it on RTL7 (german channel) I was a lector for myself repeating every line from a movie in polish :smiley: Oh nostalgia :3

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Right! It was an amazing franchise. Couple that with Dinosaurs and I think there was an entire generation obsessed with dinosaurs at one point. I cannot tell you how many profanities my mom screeched when sheā€™d step on dinosaur spikes on the toys Iā€™d left out. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Iā€™ve always wanted to be a paleontologist when I was a kid. I had more plastic dinosaurs than there are bones at excavation sites :smiley:

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Well now i got mullet. Well didnā€™t know that was ancient japanese invention too as well as paleontology. Well you live and learn o_O

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Wait till you get the ā€œSauronā€ and ā€œDeath Starā€ radicals :slight_smile:
It really sounds crazy, doesnā€™t it? However, that is the thing about WaniKani - it managed to harness the absurdity and use it for memorization by the means of mnemonics. Quite unorthodox method, I agree, but the important thing is that it works!

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I know you want to be sarcastic, but Iā€™m still not sure if youā€™ve grasped a concept yet. Please, read @trunklayer 's post abouts WKā€™s radicals again.

Well this is great site anyway even it might take some adjusting in matters of taste. Naturally impossible to please everyone. Thanks for answers. These ready made memonics make learning way faster. It takes time to make own and often there is no need for that.

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Totally true. For some people, WaniKaniā€™s method works better than for others. Different people have different ways that work best for them. :sweat_smile:
You are on your last free level, so you would have to make a decision about continuing the usage of WaniKani soon. Iā€™d recommend you to think it over. If WaniKaniā€™s method works for you (as it does for many of us) - then I suggest you subscribe. If not - then that is nothing to be ashamed of, but maybe in that case it would be more advisable for you to search something that would suit you better.
Whichever would be the case, we all wish you luck in your Japanese studies!
Still, Iā€™d really like to see you among us - subscribed members. :slight_smile:

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Didnā€™t this lead to the triceratopses extinction? :open_mouth: Do you really want to make them suffer again?
Joke aside, I felt kinda ridiculed when the ā€œnarwhalā€ radical came up. But this emotion made me remember the radical forever. Thatā€™s what this program works with, I suppose. Stupid mnemotechniques and emotions. And it somehow works. :slight_smile:

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Iā€™d already be fluent in Japanese if all of the mnemonics were dino-related

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I just got the sauron radical today and Iā€™m in love. Insta-burned. :fire:

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I loved that movie! Between that and Jurassic Park, weā€™re a whole generation of dinosaur-aware people.

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The things get realy spicy when you learn new english words to help learn japanese kanji of another english word new to you.
Not a native speaker so there are some words I have never heard before.
Like wtf is admonish that sounds like the dessert the devil eats.

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