I just got to the lesson for 龍 “Imperial”. The reading taught is りゅう. However, the only vocabulary word associated is 烏龍茶 “Oolong tea”, where the reading is obviously… ろん. ![]()
龍 is the 旧字体 form of 竜 (dragon), which is also on WaniKani with obviously the same reading. Arguably they should be taught at the same time with the same vocab since they are two forms of the same kanji.
烏龍/烏竜 is just a direct, probably recent loan from Chinese that sticks closer to the original Chinese reading instead of using the customary onyomi.
The use of 龍 instead of 竜 is purely stylistic. It’s not uncommon for Japanese people to mix and match traditional and simplified kanji forms, probably because they thought that their writing system was not complicated enough.
Also why give 龍 this keyword when “ancient dragon” is not taken yet.
To me, it feels they added especifically this kanji to teach the word Oolong tea, as it seems it’s the only word in common Japanese (not historical terms, etc) where this kanji is used and not 竜. I knew oolong tea form before (it’s delicious!), which is why I knew it didn’t have the reading taught with the kanji and the reason I noticed that no other words are taught.
WaniKani is presented as complete course where no outside knowledge is necessary. There are no mentions to the kanji for dragon 竜, nor that they are sometimes interchanged for style’s sake. As such, as it stands now it only teaches you that 龍 means “imperial” with reading X and the only common word it’s used in is 烏龍茶, with reading Y. That doesn’t make sense and therefore, it should be fixed, whether expanding the explanation of the kanji, adding more vocabulary or otherwise.
龍 is not uncommon as a standalone word or word part in titles, movie posters, superstition; in addition to be very common in fantasy settings.
It also has another reading in 竜巻, where is probably more common to use the newer alternate form, 竜.
烏龍茶 is probably better seen as an exception, since 烏 and 龍 are more commonly said words. (And Onyomi for 烏 would be ウ, not ウー.)
It’s easy to overestimate how much vocab is taught for Kanji in WK beyond level 40 or so, imo.
Indeed, for instance the popular Yakuza videogame series is originally called “Like a Dragon”, stylized with the traditional kanji:
But if you come after learning in WaniKani this kanji and read the title, you’d think it means… “Like an Imperial”?
As I said, if they stick with only Oolong tea, the reading of the kanji should be changed. Otherwise, they should include some more words to reinforce the meaning and reading they are teaching.
I don’t think teaching a “reading” of the character that isn’t actually a reading of the character makes much sense (in 烏龍茶 this is ateji, not an actual reading for 龍). Personally I’d drop the kanji and the vocab item, since AFAIK WK isn’t generally in the business of teaching old or variant kanji forms ![]()
While I agree on not teaching “ろん”, I don’t think I’d call this ateji. It’s a wholesale borrowed Chinese word with spelling and pronunciation at the time of its borrowing, just like all other words borrowed from Chinese over the centuries. And in Chinese at least some theories of name origin talk about similarity to dragons.
I’d drop oolong tea vocab and replace with dragon vocab.
Dropping the kanji is a bit awkward since it’s a component in 2 common kanji: 襲撃・襲う (jouyou, not simplified) and 籠 (theoretically simplified to 篭 but actually joujou and used).
Wanikani isn’t really concerned with that, especially since 襲 is taught 12 levels before 龍 and 籠 not taught at all.
Fun fact is that Oolong is using Mandarin Chinese readings, character by character.
About lessons and level organization, I think WaniKani is concerned with that, but less likely to change levels of Level 40s or 50s. They don’t seem to concern much about more sensible radical breakdown. (They can improve, but how actively?)
What kanji like this really need in my view is a much more open ended system than WK is – so if you don’t care about this kanji you can prioritise others that you’ve seen in your reading, or if you happen to be an oolong tea fan who lives in Japan and sees it in supermarkets all the time you can add 烏龍茶 to your vocab study, or maybe you do see the dragon related uses more and you put in that word instead.
