So why does the answer box for a kanji give you a shake-a shake-a when you accidentally put a vocab reading in but single kanji vocab words don’t do the same when you do the opposite for them? One example would be 米, for a kanji question if I typed こめ it’d shake the box and say “WaniKani is looking for the on’yomi reading” and let me type べい. But if I do it the other way around for a vocab question with the single kanji it won’t accept it.
Also
Some addons will give you the option of a “lightning” mode or a “1x1 questions” mode where you get the kanji/vocab and do the reading/definition one after another. Is it harmful to your long term retention if you use those modes?
For a kanji, both readings are readings of that kanji, but only one of them is what WaniKani is looking for.
For vocabulary, however, only one reading is correct. If you tried to say “give me some べい please” in the real world, you’re gonna get some confused looks - only こめ would be understood.
Single kanji vocab words are practical in the way that you can use them in a sentence, and not sound weird. If you read 米を買ってきてください as べいをかってきてください people won’t understand right away, and think ‘oh you still have a ways to go with learning Japanese, don’t you’. Then you might get gently corrected, or not at all, and you keep on making the mistake.
米 can also be short for 米国, in which case you would read it ベイ. But in that case it would most likely be written down, slightly formal and newspapery, and you’d just say アメリカ in everyday speech.
Gentle Corrections are for losers. I want someone to run me over with a monster truck that has the explanation of how I donked up the grammar written aggressively and in garish colors that hurt your eyes. Like one word has bright pink and green characters on a bright yellow background.
Lightning just speeds up the revuew session by skipping to the next card on a correct answer. It doesn’t give you the opportunity to look at the other synonyms, or alternate readings when available. And it might sometimes let close in spelling, but wrong answers slip through, without you noticing.
1x1 mode has different schools of thought for and against it. WK thinks interleavjng is important to train flexible recall. Other people (I think I heard this from @rfindley) think the goal is to recall both reading and meaning at the same time, so it makes more sense to ask both cards at the same time. Also speeds up the review.
