So I just watched this genius video on youtube (https://youtu.be/qMAjTVzaHA4?si=QYAZv88B2KfGb8f5) that promotes memorizing the ない-form of verbs in order to not have to memorize whether the verb is ichidan or godan.
Now I want to use this method. I know you can add additional meanings to vocabulary, but not additional readings. I think it would be an easy-to-implement feature and it would help me (and maybe others? I don’t know how many people are aware of this method?) out a lot. I would be happier with a toggle in the settings that allows me to switch from dictionary forms to ない-forms, but that’s probably more time-consuming to implement.
Might as well add this method to the “how to learn japanese” guide as well.
What do you think?
There are other tools for drilling ない-form of verbs 
This one let’s you choose what forms you want to practice.
https://wkdonc.github.io/conjugation/drill.html
Edit: There’s also this
https://oops-studio.com/japaneseverbconjugationpractice/formpicker/
True, but I think the idea is that if you know the ない form of the verb you can always mechanically get back to the dictionary/plain form and to any other form; whereas if you know only the plain form then you can’t automatically determine the ない form. The conclusion would be that it’s better to memorize the ない form only, and not worry about SRSing the plain form at all.
Logically it makes sense, but I’m not sure how it would work out in practice, given that (a) basically nobody else does this so you’d be swimming against the tide of all other learning resources, and (b) the plain form is the base one for meaning.
Personally I think I found that a combination of a bit of drilling of conjugation forms plus enough exposure to verbs in input was sufficient, without explicitly memorising verbs as godan/ichidan or whatever. (That is, with enough input you just know that it’s 食べない without explicitly having memorised that. I agree that it’s easier to think “I know the negative of this verb is ~ and so…” rather than “I know this verb is ichidan and so…”.)
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Yeah, except those are kinda equivalent - you’ve just changed the names of your verb groups from godan and ichidan to “verbs that end with an ～あ when in ない form” and “verbs that don’t”, which is a bit more of a mouthful. Going via ない-form might simplify the method to memorise whether a verb is ichidan or godan, but it certainly doesn’t eliminate the need to.
This might be a bit of a “whatever floats your boat” situation, I guess, though the chances that WaniKani would overhaul their system to allow reading synonyms for that sort of thing are… low.
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They’re not, because your input does not come with a lot of tags “godan” and “ichidan”, so you do not get free repetition of “食べる is ichidan”. Input does come with a lot of negative verb forms, so you get a ton of free repetition of “the negative of 食べる is 食べない” (and similarly for less common verbs), so you remember it even without explicitly memorising it. That’s why it’s easier.
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A potential long-term negative of learning ない forms rather than ichidan/godan classification is an added layer of work when looking up verbs from a dictionary. I actually have this problem despite learning the dictionary forms because I learned them as “る-verbs and う-verbs”, so any time I look up a verb ending in る I have to translate “ichidan” ->“る-verb” in my head. It’s not a huge deal, but it adds friction when trying to look something up quickly.
As for adding support to WK, I think it’d be tricky. ある／ない and 足りる／足りない are separate vocabulary words, and there are also other vocabulary phrases like 仕方がない and 興味がない where the use of ある’s negative form ない is taught as part of the phrase. There’d have to be some kind of audit and subsequent consolidation of vocabulary like this to fit within a ない-based system. For the same reason, adding unofficial support via a user script would be more effort than just a blanket replacement for verbs.
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