I searched a bit and couldn’t find any good answer to this, maybe there isn’t one…
Is there any way to guess whether 大 is going to read as たい or だい? Is there any kind of definitional nuance (like there is with にん and じん, where one is what you do and the other is what you are)? Chinese origin? Rendaku-like change depending on the other parts of the word? Or is it pure convention and you just have to memorize them all?
Would you mind expanding on this? I’m only on level 2, so my vocabulary is still lacking. But I noticed how in 三人 it’s にん, and on 人工 and 人口 it’s じん.
They are talking about when 人 is a suffix.
this and 人 are my nemesis so far, making a lot of mistakes in reviews
the only one I get right is patient 病人 because the mnemonics said about sick people in hospitals play nintendo.
This one burned in my mind, never got it wrong, but the rest? Mistakes
I was confused as to why 村人 is むらびと and not むらにん at first, but I’ve managed to learn the whole word so I’m not left guessing when I see it. However, I’m sure I’ll get tripped up at some point with it as I start learning more words with 人 lmao
Not that I’ve found. The only rule of thumb that kind of helps is だい is usually about size and たい is usually about importance, but it’s not reliable enough for me.
They’re both kun’yomi. It’s common pattern for words to be either all on or all kun.
The on’yomi for 村 is そん like in そんみん (村民), villager.
As I said before, にん is usually what you do - like, a job, or a role, or something that you choose to be - and じん is what you are innately.
So if you’re sick (病にん) or you’re a criminal (犯にん) or a performer (芸にん), then you’re not that thing innately, it’s something that’s temporary or ascribed to you somehow. But if you’re American (アメリカじん) or a space alien (宇宙じん) then you’ll always be that, no matter what you do and regardless of what anyone else thinks of you. It’s the kind of person you are.
And, uh, as Leebo pointed out, it’s only when 人 is the end of the word… like, describing a person. It doesn’t work for things like 人間 or 人形. But I find those are usually easier to remember somehow, YMMV…
The 病人 and 芸人 examples are just coincidentally lining up with that conception, since 人 is not a suffix there, just the second part of a kanji compound. A suffix 人 with にん would be like 料理人 (りょうりにん person who does cooking, a cook) or 代理人 (だいりにん person who does representation, a representative). 料理 and 代理 are words that had this にん suffix added to them.
In non-suffix situations, the reading is based on when the word was borrowed into Japanese from Chinese. As such, it’s literally a fluke of history that determined those, but people find some mnemonics fit enough of them to be worth using.
Damn, I just went through every word on WaniKani that ends in 人 where it’s read as にん (here), and as far as I can tell it seems like they all adhere to these two definitions (maybe with the exception of 他人?)
Pretty much this in my experience as well. After a couple of words one can pick the correct reading :). It’s also true for abbreviations like 短大, but in this case the 大 comes from 大学. Unless, it’s the kun’yomi reading like in 大雨.
Don’t forget about おお 
大勢（おおぜい）、大型（おおがた）、大空（おおぞら）
yeah but
what about 別人 ?
It is a “state”, not innately as you described. A person becomes different because of a situation, etc.
So words like this start confusing me 
The best way is to just memorize words as a whole, by their reading, not by their kanji. Take 大会 as an example. You memorize たいかい as a whole word, then when you see “big” and “meet”, you try to match what readings you know to what vocab you’ve already memorized. If だいかい doesn’t match what you already learned, and たいかい does, then that’s gonna be the correct answer. There’s no other way to correctly “guess” the readings. You have to memorize words, not kanji readings in isolation.
It’s not going to cover 100% of them, but it’s reliable enough to make the ones that do not adhere to it easier to memorize.
But as far as 別人 is concerned (and a few other examples), I personally also lean into the state of permanence as a mnemonic aid. A changed man is someone who’s had something happen to them and worked hard to make that change, thus that change is now a part of them, intrinsic to their character.
Though it doesn’t necessarily reflect the complexity of human growth, it’s close enough to serve its purpose. 
I see, thanks for the explanation! I haven’t yet come across the on’yomi for 村 on WK yet haha
It’s not on here since it isn’t super common. Like, for villager, you’d usually use 村人.
Words that use all on’yomi have sort of a more academic status. So 村民 is kind of like saying “indigenous inhabitant”.
I just thought it was an interesting point to bring up.
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