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?
I’ve never used wani kani, but a commonly used memory technique for learning kanji radicals involves giving them names which can then be used to create stories to help you remember other kanji when they are combined together. There is probably some additional information associated with this deck that you are missing. But no, it doesn’t actually mean Mona Lisa.
Yeah, it’s a learning technique. The general idea is, when you’re looking at a Kanji, the character should represent a meaning or concept related to how it’s used. For the sub-components, you can call those whatever you want that helps you remember.
It’s a little weird that Wani-Kani has you remember the radical separately, under a different keyword. But it isn’t unusual at all to have a Kanji represent something else (or a few different possible things) when it appears as a component. It’s easier to remember (and to build a mnemonic) if 兼 represents something visual and concrete like ‘Mona Lisa’ instead of an abstract concept, like ‘concurrently’.
But yeah, the actual meaning of that Kanji is something along the lines of ‘concurrently’, per WaniKani’s own definition: https://www.wanikani.com/kanji/兼, as opposed to the ‘radical’ from your screenshot: https://www.wanikani.com/radicals/mona-lisa So yeah, basically just stick with it and you’ll use that Mona-Lisa part to memorize several other Kanji.
(Sidenote: looks like you’re going through WK material in Anki, which is good, but know that you can copy that character into WaniKani’s search and see their breakdown even if you don’t subscribe or log in.)
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.