If you’re confusing radicals with kanji, the issue is not that the radicals are too similar to some kanji, but rather that Koichi’s made them too different. I suggest you come up with your own mnemonics to memorise them, because I find it so much easier to remember how to write complex kanji if I can recall the radicals. For example, the kanji 意 – if I were to memorise that as a bunch of strokes, where would I even start when recalling it or describing it? As a bunch of radicals, it’s easy: stand on a sun, on a heart.

Just idly, though, which ones are confusing you? I just took a quick glance through the radicals, and none of the ones I picked out were as confusing as I remember some being. (Well, there’s still the way he gives new names to radicals which don’t look like kanji, but are directly derived from kanji, like how the four strokes below 点 are a different form of the fire radical 火, but he’s called them… what was it, fish tail?)

Even though the bottom part of 点 does look a bit like a fish tail, to me it also looks like a camp fire, which probably lends itself to mnemonic creation a bit better.

What I’ve never really understood is why that radical is said to be a different form of 火 – it has the same number of strokes, but doesn’t look *that* much like it. Same goes for the side radical of 汗 – it looks nothing like 水 and doesn’t even have the same number of strokes, but is said to be another form of 水; they’re even LESS related than the other two :D