I’ve just learnt 視 and noticed that the component on the right is 礻(示) not 衤(衣). I’ve gone to the suit component and noticed that it’s Found In Hanzi section shows it doesn’t discriminate between being used as either component in a character
I suspect this is fine if reading is your main goal, but learning characters before, for writing, I’ve had a hard time remembering whether the radical I need to write for a certain character is 礻(示) or 衤(衣) since their component form is just one dot different and I tend to mix them up.
Is there any chance of getting a different mnemonic for the components 礻(示) and 衤(衣)?
You are not the first to notice this. One way to remember is by the meaning. If the meaning is clothing related, it is probably 衤. If the meaning is something spiritual, it is probably 礻.
I think there’s some potential merit in separating them out. We took liberty with this because of reading/on-sight familiarity being the main objective as you noted
But I can also see how these liberties can be a little confusing not only for those writing but also how sometimes, more the component diverges from what’s presented, so it can be harder to recall the component name.
This one is a special case as well. These are quite easy to mix up since they’re so close I wonder if making them separate components would cause difficulties in remembering the mnemonic.
I’ve struggled before with characters that aren’t really attached to either meaning, like 裡. I realize that as I learn more characters remembering which component they use will become easier to do, but I was hoping to lean more into the mnemonic system that hanzihero uses.
One idea that I was thinking about last night, for myself, was to seperate them out into two diffferent types of suits. 衤being a normal black business suit, maybe used by a cloth merchant, and 礻being a white / radiant suit maybe worn by a business angel or a business god - being that it’s both godly but also spotless (ie. it doesn’t have the extra spot).
衤 - a formal and lavish white-tie sort of suit, as the two dashes seem to indeed represent a fancy tailcoat. This, incidentally, sort of plays into the fact that it is more related to the “clothes” component.
礻 - a more normal business suit. One’s “Sunday best”, I guess.
We’ll have to think about this one some more. But the split above is kind of nice, especially if “suit” is accepted as an answer for both, regardless of whatever flourish we have as main component name.
The black/white distinction seems like an acceptable makeshift before the two components are split, but they really ought to be split as soon as you can manage, on three counts:
they differ by a stroke, which no-one can say is a trivial difference, since that’s all that separates many similar pairs among hanzi
they have separate semantic fields - the spiritual vs clothing
the versions when these components are shifted from the left of the hanzi to the bottom position look completely different: 礻becomes 示, and 衤becomes 衣, and these associations are broken if both the left-hand versions are lumped together as “suit”.
Some users (like) me, will be using the Skritter app in conjuction with HanziHero, for the purpose of memorizing hanzi through writing; by the way, this is not the same as practising calligraphy, since beauty is not a consideration here - just the correct shape, direction and order of strokes. I don’t expect to be writing hanzi often (if ever) by hand, but in many fields, active learning (here, writing) can be the strongest way to reinforce work towards a passive outcome (reading).
Lastly, a personal recommendation: when I was using Heisig (for Japanese) in the past, I gave 礻 the name “cult” - think of a whacky religious cult of the sort that sprang up around San Francisco in the late 60s. Since the mnemonics are mainly humorous, many users will prefer not to mix this up with say, elements of Christianity, where there will be a suggestion of mockery (even if inadvertent).
I wonder if making them separate components would cause difficulties in remembering the mnemonic.