7-Stroke Radicals
“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” – John Cage
7-stroke radicals is where radicals really start taking a nosedive in terms of how many you learn. There aren’t many here, and there aren’t many going forward, either (I’d say you’ve learned 75%, if not more, of the radicals). As radicals get bigger they just get more and more unnecessary, since you’ve learned enough to piece together into even the biggest kanji. If you think about it, the biggest kanji tend to be around 18-20 strokes. If our goal is to have three or fewer radicals per kanji, you could have three seven stroke radicals making up a single kanji, which would equal 21 strokes. That’s sort of why things really start tapering down after seven. Anyways, you’ll see soon enough! Just wanted to congratulate you on finishing nearly all the radicals. There is a light at the end of the radicals tunnel.
Anyways, you know what to do. Go through and read the mnemonics, trying to imagine them out as best as possible. Then, download the deck and import it to your Anki deck. You should then review and study for a while before moving on.
Servant
Do you see the Giant radical in there? This giant has chains going from his arms to his body, making him the servant of of a king.
See
When an eye has legs, it can see anything.
Say
See all that paper on top of the mouth? She wrote everything down that she wanted to say to him, taking four whole pages.
Fish Leg House
This house sells fish legs, which is why there is a fish legs sign on top of this fish legs house.
Bean
There’s a bean on the stand, though the bean is covered with dirt.
Pig
You’ll have to learn this one straight-up. There are some hints of hoginess in here (like a similar version of the animal radical), but it’ll probably simpler to just learn it a few pieces at a time. It’s quite a unique look on its own, anyways.
Clam
The eye has fish legs. Just imagine a clam running around on fish legs, with one giant eye looking around.
Red
The grave started floating away using four magical tentacles (below the grave). As it flew away, it turns bright red from all the blood.
Leg
Very similar to running man, but this time running man has a head. His head is so big that it’s putting lots of stress on his legs.
Car
There are crosses on either side of the rice field, where two car accidents took place because everyone was looking too closely at the awesome rice field that’s there.
Bitter
Notice the radicals for stand and 10? After she was stood up 10 times by him, she began to become bitter.
Hipster Clothes
The clothes (clothes radical) are in the cliff under the ground (i.e. the one radical). Underground clothes are only for the coolest of cool… the hipsters. That’s why this is the radical for Hipster Clothes.
Rice Slide
You remember the rice radical, right? This is the same, but now it has a slide on it. The rice slide is where they send all the rice to go into the truck (or another container).
Empty Rice Field
This rice field is like a grave – nothing growing, and everything is dead, making it an empty rice field.
Practicing The Radicals
“Mountaintops inspire leaders but valleys mature them.” – Winston Churchill
Now you have some radicals to practice (and probably some to review, as well). Fire up that radicals deck of yours and let’s import 7-stroke into it.
When you’ve downloaded and imported the 7-stroke radicals into your Radicals Anki deck, review what you need to review, and (hopefully, if you’ve been keeping on task with these) learn the new radicals as well. Many will come in handy in the 7-stroke kanji section!