Is it incorrect to interpret this character as 十 on top of radical for "mending" (between 381 and 382)?

This character gives me a little trouble even though I know the word はしる by heart.

I think memorizing it in the way I've mentioned above may help out, but I don't it to conflict with something later on.

Any advice or suggestions?

It is 土 つち soil, not 十 and the story was something like "running is like mending the soil," wasn't it?

You're right, Nagareboshi. But it wouldn't hurt to reinterpret the primitives, would it? If it works better for somebody. Or is there a (written) form of the character thinkable where the bottom of 土 does not touch the other part?

"10 + mend" is accurate for the shape and the stroke order. The top-voted story by a long way is "If you run 10 miles, you will need to mend your socks!" (I used that story, and the card is at 1.6 years and never forgotten.)

Though the length of the strokes of 土 are fixed and those of 十 are not fixed so keeping it at the earth radical was better in my case to obtain a better looking 走.
Visual memory can be used to remember the length though, so go for it.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

KanjiDevourer Wrote:You're right, Nagareboshi. But it wouldn't hurt to reinterpret the primitives, would it? If it works better for somebody. Or is there a (written) form of the character thinkable where the bottom of 土 does not touch the other part?

I have to agree, whatever works for the original poster, is fine. As long as he can remember it, and the stroke length of it. It is also no problem later on, whether or not he uses 10 or soil, because そう is a radical by itself. Since he can directly look it up, if he is looking for a multi radical kanji, containing this radical. Just thinking ahead here. ;-)

I find that when a primitive is written slightly different from the usual it helps to give the primitive a slight change in meaning. Like there's a broom primitive that's normal and one with a weird bottom so I give the the altered primitive a meaning of a warn out broom. So, I wouldn't change the whole meaning of the primitive but rather just alter it a little. Otherwise it may start to be hard to remember all of the different primitives.