On Radicals

kiokuwarui Member

From: Germany Registered: 2012-01-23 Posts: 17

This might be a silly question, but..

I've been learning Japanese without focus on Kanji for about 1,5 years. What I know about Kanji is almost zero. I can read a few hundred, because I encounter them all the time while chatting (which I do on a daily basis).

I've just started learning Radicals on memrise and wonder..

What the heck do I need them for?
I mean, "ladle", "fish hook", "small table", "small knife"... I just don't get it. Can anyone explain how these radicals can actually benefit my Kanji studies? I'm on the verge of abandoning that deck and just do rote, word for word, but...

Thanks in advance!

pervygoat Member

From: philadelphia Registered: 2012-03-03 Posts: 20

I just started using memrise because you said that, its fun. I started with the N5, it has 117 Kanji's and most of the content is USER generated, which means theres bugs in it (Some cards repeat right after itself, which is useless) but it also means the bugs get fixed frequently, its kind of amazing watching it all go down from the inside. The user generated contents (abid mostly stolen from RTK by heisig+ a bunch of other textbooks I've read) are imaginative and fun.

nadiatims Member

Registered: 2008-01-10 Posts: 1676

You don't need a name (english or otherwise) for the radicals. It is interesting to know what they mean though. I'm did RTK, but I'm pretty sure you could just get used to them by learning vocabulary.

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