Is this word ever really used? It’s a level 4 word but as far as I can tell it’s uncommon. Wondering why it’s in WK
1 Like
It’s a word that uses kanji that you will have learned by that level. There aren’t always great examples of those if you only stick to common words. Even if the word is less common, having vocab available to practice the readings has merrit.
14 Likes
Yeah, vocab is a little more weighted towards helping you reinforce kanji than being the absolute most useful words, but you’ll definitely learn plenty of good ones too.
For what it’s worth, if you play videogames, I realized I had already come across this specific word because it’s the name of a sword technique in Sekiro, haha.
5 Likes
Oh wow for some reason I thought ichimonji sounded familiar. I’ve played Sekiro and remember it now.
1 Like
Aside from the occurrence in Sekiro, I’ve seen it in a manga once I think, but it’s definitely not very common.
But yeah, as mentioned, the vocab in WK is primarily there to reinforce the kanji. Any useful vocab you learn along the way is a nice bonus.
That also means if you’re going for making use of your Japanese, WK is not your best source of vocab. You don’t necessarily learn the most useful/common vocab early on, and you don’t learn kana-only words at all, with the exception of some that are very uncommonly written in kanji (like 丁度 and 玉に)
4 Likes
I was just thinking that for these particular kanji there are enough common words to learn as examples that it seems odd to throw in uncommon ones.
It’s also about readings I guess? 文字 is usually read もじ, but in 一文字 it’s read もんじ.
Other than that… I honestly have no idea. I generally do think WK goes a bit overboard with trying to reinforce certain kanji, sometimes - but hey, better one word too many than one word too few, I guess?
1 Like
I’ve seen it a number of times. I mean if you want to say “a line”, this is the word, so if you never come across a scenario where you need to say “a line”, you’ll probably never see it? But that’s the case of every word. Of the weird or rare words to question on WK this is very low on the list imo.
2 Likes
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen 線 a lot more in that usage. It also ranks 1896th on the BCCWJ, while 一文字 ranks 14827th. I really don’t think if you make any reference to a line 一文字 is the word to use.
Saw it a couple hours ago when I was finishing up 百合エルフと呪われた姫, so yeah its used…
As for how much its used, not that much honestly. Maybe once in every…5 or 6 books in my experience? So its definitely not as rare as some other wanikani words and you’ll need to learn it, but mah. As for why WK has it, others have already answered that really.
Hmm, I dunno. 一文字 is definitely more commonly used to just mean one character honestly, and for the line meaning 一直線 or 直線 feels more common. 線 doesn’t really feel like a valid replacement for 一文字 or 一直線 since they both translate to “line” in some cases but have a different idea behind them. 直線、一直線 and 一文字 all have the feeling of like the idea of the line. Like its the idea of going straight. 線 feels like something you would use for something that looks like a line. Like if you drew one out, for example, that feels more appropriate for 線.
You can see how in my picture even, 一文字 isn’t what the crack is, and instead describes the direction the crack is running, so its more the idea. This is also probably why 一文字 and 一直線 can be used to describe focusing in on one thing and going for it since thats still the idea of “going straight ahead in the same direction”.
線 however is more like just a line and wouldn’t be used to describe the direction or idea of a line, but rather a line that actually exists like if you drew one out on a piece of paper.
4 Likes
Yeah, that’s the idea I had in my head
I think when I saw 一文字 being used it was in the sense of making a beeline for something or something of the sort
1 Like
Yep, exactly. Its more about the describing the direction/form which is why you should really only see that usage followed by a に. Out of curiosity, I decided to google it because I wanted to know which one was used for math. A line in geometry technically is something, but at the same its math so its very conceptual and theres a lot of focus on the idea of the line so I could see it going either way. It looks like they use 直線 though.
1 Like
Just goes to show relying on the English translation of a word isn’t always the best idea.
One of the reasons I try using a monolingual dictionary as much as possible these days.
1 Like
Last time I saw it (in the book I finished yesterday) it was in this sentence
麻衣は口を真一文字に結んでいる
so I mean…not the “one character” meaning. It’s worth pointing out that the reading WK teaches for 一文字 (and therefore probably the one being discussed here) is いちもんじ. If you want to count a single character that’s ひともじ.
Yes, doing the horizontal lip thing is probably one of the most common uses for the “straight line” usage. I just said that the straight line usage isn’t more common than the one character meaning even though yes, the readings are different. Surely you don’t mean to argue off of a sample size of 1 that 一文字 is more commonly the line meaning/reading, right? It seems like you are disagreeing with me in some regard, but I don’t quite understand what you’re trying to say.
But you can see how again, its followed by a に and describes, in this case, the form of the lips.
Also, I was unaware that wanikani only includes one meaning/reading when I made the comment. I meant to point out how you will see 一文字 even if you don’t see anything about lines since you said this
For some reason I thought both meanings and readings were on wanikani. I woulda learned this like 6 years ago so I guess its possible they changed it, but most likely I’m just baka.
Or 何故 
一文字 comes up from time to time on our forums here. I think someone else mentioned it earlier this year.
Found it: My wife seems to be skeptical of the usefulness regarding some of the vocab on Wanikani
We already had the 河豚 incident and before that the 里心 incident, which I did not witness personally.
WaniKani prioritizes kanji readings over vocab and overall usefulness, something we have to get used to 
. However, to kind of reiterate the take-home from the 河豚 incident, it’s worth knowing a word, because there is a chance we’ll come across it eventually.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.