LLearn Japanese

Does correct meaning of radicals and kanji keywords matter?

I learn kanji by RTK and sometimes keywords are very confusing. For example kanji 旦 in RTK has “Nightbreak” keyword, but in other sources it’s “Daybreak”. I use Kanji Koohii in my laptop, but when I use smartphone app, there’re different keywords. Any tips how to manage this?

6 comments

  1. No meaning matters except for words themselves

    Everything else is a mnemonic for helping to memorize, recognize, or differentiate words

    Kanji are not always a sum of their components

    Words are not always a sum of their kanji

  2. You are learning kanji by a list copied from RTK.

    If, on the other hand you read the actual book Remembering the Kanji by Heisig, this is explained pretty thoroughly.

    旦那, 元旦

  3. I’m also using the crowd-sourced mnemonics from koohii kanji

    there’s no great way to fix this, users write stories using whatever radical “keyword” they want, and some of them even make up their own keyword and start writing stories with that

    I found just pick one and use stories using that one is the easiest thing

  4. I’d say stick with the mnemonic from the system you use the most. If you’re able to edit them, you could append the keywords to the main system. For example in RTK make it “nightbreak, daybreak”.

    In the longer term you won’t need them, because you won’t be seeing kanji in terms of a vague meaning the symbol might carry, but rather as parts of actual words. I’ve only been studying for about 5 months and already I know a bunch of kanji that I can’t even remember the mnemonics for.

  5. I would describe that as a character with a sun radical (ひへん). Characters with the same radical often have a related concept so it can be helpful to know (and can help with reading as well as they may have the same reading!)

    On a bit of a tangent, 部首 can be helpful if learned in Japanese.

    We use radicals to describe characters to other people if we’ve forgotten how to write a kanji e.g. for the word 答え – 「くさかんむり」に合格の合と書いて答

  6. You can use whatever you like as long as you are consistent. Some names he chose for the radicals are the traditional names/meanings (possibly even the original Chinese ones) some are his own invention because he hit problems with too similar meanings or duplicates with traditional ones. In the end the system he presents is hopefully consistent and complete. If you deviate from his then make some sort of cheatsheet and migrate over to that so you know which you have chosen.

    btw if you look at Traditional Chinese (as used in Taiwan) you’ll be surprised at how many non Japanese characters you know from his system.

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四年間の読書

最近は、ここのユーザーさんたちが自分の成長について語り合っていましたね。私も参加して書いてみたいと思っています。もしよければ、ぜひ読解の練習にしてください。間違いがあったら添削もお願いします。 数日前、『新編　日本の怪談』という本を読み終えました。子男の本は、ちょうど四年前に日本で買ったものです。あの時は、あまり読書はしませんでしたので興味深い読み物をチャレンジしてみたいと思っていました。ですが、この本は古臭い言葉や仏教に関する言葉がたくさんあって、文語の文法までも入っていました。買った時のレベルは、日本語能力試験N3に過ぎませんでした。ツーリストとして日本を歩き回るのは簡単でしたが、こんな本はさすがに読みにくかったのです。なので、あの本を何回も本棚に戻して何ヶ月も読みませんでした。でも、リーディングを完全に諦めたわけではありませんでした。毎日少しだけでもブログやニュースを読み続けて、読解力をレベルアップしました。たまにはライトノベルやビジュアルノベルも読んでいました。去年、古文の授業を受ける余裕もできたので、今度怪談の本を読んでみたら、以前ほどあまり難しくなかったのです。怪談の本は、私が持っている本の中で一番難しかったので、ちょっと偉そうに思われるかもしれませんが、どんな本でも克服できそうな気分です。