I’m lerning kanji using WaniKani and a set of cards for Ankidroid for offline use. They are giving these weird names to kanji and radicals and I was wondering if those were correct? I feel like I’m learning the wrong names for these characters or their meaning… This is just one example. I came across another one called “mohawk”. That doesn’t make sense to me. Or am I missing something? Is it a learning technique?


Thanks for the exlanation! Yeah, often WanKani is the only website with that reference lol. I just came across another one they call the “death star” which is actually the radical for “general” or “generalization”. This makes it confusing for reading actual kanjis later, like “transport”, or “import”/“export”.
I’m modifying some of the cards to be more in line with the actual meaning with my own mnemonics.
Right, for the ones that are themselves also Kanji, I’d say don’t worry about memorizing them as specific radicals. Do think of other names for them if it helps.
The card you showed is blue and says ‘radical’ under it, you probably have another later in the deck that’s pink and says Kanji. Might be worth deleting this blue one instead of editing it.
I didn’t realize the ‘death star’ one had any actual meaning. Heisig or someone on Kohii calls it a butcher’s convention and I’ve just stuck with that.
I never have learned much about actual “radicals” though. I think it’s like, this technical term used for something different than sub-components that I look at and think about so far.
To me it helps make sense of the kanji later if I understand the radicals correctly.
I was able to guess some of them right off the bat lol.