sometimes i will get a review wrong because i type the japanese pronunciation into the english meaning category. it’s not a huge deal because i have the ignore plugin for typos like that.
but recently i’ve been debating adding the japanese pronunciation as a synonym for words i know really well. words like “genki” and “bangou” where i feel like i’m starting to understand their meaning without translating them in my head.
has anyone done this before? will it bite me in the butt later?
i’ve already done it for ~kun because ~kun is ~kun and no one has time to write “male name ender” or whatever. no regrats.
I’ve done this for a couple. I feel if you truly know the word and its meaning, it shouldn’t hurt. But if you’re even slightly iffy on a meaning, it could hurt. So as long as you’re honest about it, should be fine.
I did that for -kun straight away too… And Katana, and -sama, and a few others.
I’d only do this sparingly. As someone else said, only for those words you really, really, REALLY know. I think I did it for onsen, too.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, although it might be better for you to just install the ignore button plugin since that way you can be sure you did it just because you were distracted and not because you don’t quite know the meaning of the kanji.
As for shortening long meanings, I’ve changed 和室 to just “Japanese Room” and 洋室 to just “Western Room” because having to write “Style” is a hassle and I know they refer to style anyway
thanks for your replies everyone! it sounds like it’s not a terrible idea but also not a great idea either. i think i’ll stick to just doing it for words with no good english translation (eg kun, sama)
I do it all the time. Well over a hundred words, I’d say. I wouldn’t even say you need to know the word really well before doing it - just that when you hear the Japanese word the correct concept / image floats into your mind. I find I can increasingly speak and listen in Japanese and even scan-read simple texts without internally translating words and phrases into English so if you do know the word, I’d actually go so far as to say it’s an actively good thing to add.
A lot of words don’t translate exactly between English and Japanese anyway, so often - even though WK’s translation is perfectly correct - a Japanese word may have a wider meaning than the English word we’re given or vice-versa.
Only thing to be careful of is, I sometimes think I’ve added the Japanese as a synonym and then find out I haven’t. Of course, since you already have override, that’s not a big problem.
