Archive of emails to WaniKani

[polv]

So WaniKani wants people to email to hello@wanikani.com for feedback. Nonetheless, many of them don’t come with meaningful response in the foreseeable future; or just not good reply at all.

Not sure how much Good-Not Good affects WaniKani.

Also, sometimes I want opinions from people outside WaniKani team too.

[polv]

Vocabulary 諒一郎

On July 4, 2023 at 7:02 AM GMT+1

Who is this person 諒一郎 you are talking about? A real big person’s name? Any significance or convincing story?

Also, this is the only one vocabulary for Kanji 諒. Nonetheless I have found 諒解 elsewhere, which contains Kanji’s meaning.

Hey Polv,

Thanks for reaching out

We recently added some examples of famous people using the names taught in WaniKani but it seems we left 諒一郎 out at the time. I’ll let our content team know so that they can make the appropriate changes.

Regarding 諒解, while it can happen, it is a pretty rare usage. The more common kanji for that word is 了解 which we teach already on WaniKani. We still wanted to add 諒 despite there not being many words that use it as 諒一郎 is quite a common name and worth knowing.

Thanks again for the feedback and let us know if we can do anything else for you,

Not convincing, because rare or common is a personal experience. Also, not sure of a concrete example of people with 諒一郎.

[polv]

Does 枕 Kanji really have On’yomi of しん?

Contents

On Sat, 03 Jun 2023 18:15:10 +0700

しん is listed in Kanjipedia, but not 小学館 デジタル大辞泉. Also, not sure of a vocabulary having this reading.

However, ちん has some associated vocabularies.

Comparing with a similar looking Kanji of 沈, this one clear has a reading of ちん.

So, if しん isn’t appropriate for 枕, it should be removed.

04 June

Hey polv,

Thank you for reaching out! It seems like しん is a relatively rare reading, but 沈沈 can be read as しんしん. I agree with you though that we should consider adding ちん as a reading because at a glance it seems more useful and more common. I’ll let the content team know about this so they can make a determination.

Thanks for bringing this up!

I wanted to let you know our team moved both ちん and しん to the warning list for 枕.

Whatever. I haven’t seen vocabularies containing 枕(ちん) or 枕(しん) in the wild, personally.

Note that 枕頭(ちんとう) and 枕石漱流(ちんせきそうりゅう) do appear in my IME.

[polv]

厚い doesn’t accept warm or cordial

Contents

On Friday May 05, 2023 at 8:20 am PDT -0700

暑い doesn’t accept warm or cordial as an answer, but warm welcome is in an example sentence.

Typo. It’s 厚い. Not necessarily about thickness.

Oh of course, I’ll pass that on to the content team to get it changed. Thanks for the feedback

I wanted to let you know that we’ve added “warm,” “cordial,” and “kind” to the warning list for 厚い, updated the meaning explanation, and updated three context sentences with new ones. Our team agreed that 手厚い is more commonly used to convey the meanings of “warm,” “kind,” and “cordial.”

We are planning to add 分厚い as the more common word for “thick” and 手厚い for “cordial.”

Ah, this one is worth changing example sentences themselves. I can’t really comment on commonness myself, having not enough experience.

Removed context sentences

• どうやってこの厚いへいに穴が空いたんだろう。
  • I wonder how a hole was made in this thick fence.
• トーフグオフィスをおとずれたさい、とても厚いもてなしを受けました。
  • When I visited the Tofugu office, I received a very warm welcome.
• コウイチは、厚い苔の上で休んでいる病気のミミズを見つけた。
  • Koichi found a sick earthworm resting on some thick moss.

There are several “cordial” in Anime context sentences, however.

Anime context sentences

• Hunter × Hunter
  • ＜ゴンがキルアに キルアがゴンに寄せる信頼は→ とてつもなく厚い＞
    • Gon and Killua share a strong bond of trust.
• Kokoro Connect
  • 品行方正 成績優秀 教師からの人望も厚い 優等生ってとこだ
    • Perfect manners, stellar grades, and the teachers love her.
• From the New World
  • この奇狼丸 改めて 厚く御礼を申し上げます…
    • Please allow me, Kiroumaru, to express my deepest gratitude.
• Hyouka
  • 折木奉太郎は義に厚く情が深いんだ
    • Oreki Houtarou is a passionate and honorable man.

[polv]

Meaning of 富む doesn’t exactly feel like example sentence (but it isn’t wrong)

On June 11, 2023 at 9:54 PM EDT

富む’s accepted meanings include – to be rich; to be wealthy. Although not mentioned of what kind of riches, people would think of money first?

Then, in context sentence, it says of bacon. So, does this mean it can’t be used for wealth?

Anyway, it can be used for both money and other kind of resources.

１ 財産が多くある。金持ちである。「—・んだ家」

２ 豊富にある。多くそなえている。「才知に—・む」「起伏に—・んだ土地」

Hey polv,

Thank you for reaching out! I think the context sentence gives you the idea that 富む can be used for more than just money, but because a context sentence doesn’t mention a certain meaning, doesn’t mean it can’t be used in that way, as you pointed out.

I think the solution to this though is to include some more context sentences to elaborate on 富む’s meanings. I’ll let the content team know about this one so they can decide if they want to add a few more sentences for 富む.

Thanks for bringing this up!

[WeebPotato]

Thanks for starting the thread!

For a number of words WaniKani teaches, it would help for the context sentences to be more grounded or there being an actual explanation of the usage of the words, otherwise this is worse than the context-less vacuum of Anki, because a general statement might be misleading.

[DIO-Berry]

It seems it’s not even top 1k

This is the first Wikipedia entry that pops up when I search

中山諒一郎

It’s the 7th link on my search and WK shows up as the 5th link.

[polv]

It seems to be a relatively new vocabulary from less than a year ago, where other name vocabularies are also introduced.

@TofuguJenny

• Level 53: 諒一郎 (りょういちろう) - Ryoichiro

Nonetheless, the person bearing this name is left out.

[TofuguNico]

@polv

Not convincing, because rare or common is a personal experience. Also, not sure of a concrete example of people with 諒一郎.

I just wanted to update you with our original reasoning for adding 諒一郎. I had misunderstood the explanation, so apologies for the confusion.

Essentially, while the name 諒一郎 isn’t very common, we believe it is worth learning because the kanji 諒 is used in lots of names, and both 諒 and 一郎 are names in their own right. This way you get to learn how to read a number of other names all while not having to add too many items to your reviews or having too many repeats.

We’ll probably add an equivalent explanation to 諒一郎 for clarification, thanks again for bringing this up and let us know if this makes sense or not.

[WeebPotato]

@TofuguNico

Essentially, while the name 諒一郎 isn’t very common, we believe it is worth learning because the kanji 諒 is used in lots of names, and both 諒 and 一郎 are names in their own right. This way you get to learn how to read a number of other names all while not having to add too many items to your reviews or having too many repeats.

That’s actually a pretty neat idea! Probably not instantly obvious as @polv pointed out, though. Are you guys planning to do add extra names using common jinmeiyou kanji and/or common names?

Currently, I have a separate Anki deck for names to practice name readings, since these are notoriously tricky.

[Vanilla]

@TofuguNico

This way you get to learn how to read a number of other names

You get to make an educated guess.

And the educated guess for someone who didn’t learn 諒一郎 would be りょう for 諒 and いちろう for 一郎 if they did wanikani. So you would have been right from the get go.

I think saying you “get to learn how to read a number of other names” is overstating it.

[TofuguNico]

We’ve changed the meaning mnemonic for 諒一郎 to make it a little clearer. Unfortunately though, there are no plans to add extra names at the moment.

[polv]

The name 諒一郎 isn’t very common, but it’s worth learning because the kanji 諒 is used in lots of names, and both 諒 and 一郎 are names in their own right. So by learning this name, you should be able to read a whole lot of other names, too.

I am thinking that a more sound solution is to add 諒 and remove 諒一郎. Or hide 諒一郎 from Lessons and Kanji / vocabulary pages.

Unconvincing explanation is going to be complained on, sooner or later.

[WeebPotato]

@polv

I am thinking that a more sound solution is to add 諒 and remove 諒一郎. Or hide 諒一郎 from Lessons and Kanji / vocabulary pages.

諒 as kanji is already in the system with the exact same reading as the one used in the name so that would be a dup vocabulary item. However, since we’re distinguishing here the name (vocab) from the kanji, in WaniKani terms it fits .

There are 2 kun’yomi readings listed on the 諒 card so it might be worth exploring these maybe? I’m not too familiar with 諒, unfortunately, and it’s also a name kanji and not a jouyou so…

[Vanilla]

@WeebPotato

諒 as kanji is already in the system with the exact same reading as the one used in the name so that would be a dup vocabulary item. However, since we’re distinguishing here the name (vocab) from the kanji, in WaniKani terms it fits .

There are 2 kun’yomi readings listed on the 諒 card so it might be worth exploring these maybe? I’m not too familiar with 諒, unfortunately, and it’s also a name kanji and not a jouyou so…

@polv

I am thinking that a more sound solution is to add 諒 and remove 諒一郎. Or hide 諒一郎 from Lessons and Kanji / vocabulary pages.

Unconvincing explanation is going to be complained on, sooner or later.

I’m more confused why its in wanikani in the first place.

Firstly we are teaching people that 諒 means “comprehend”. Congrats! What exactly is it you expect people to do with this information? There is no way the average learner will be able to utilize that knowledge in the coming several years of their japanese journey.

We still wanted to add 諒 despite there not being many words

Thats an understatement. There is probably no word that contains 諒 that you can reasonably expect users to come across in the first several years of their study. So this begs the question: why do you want to add 諒 so bad? You don’t have kanji like wipe(拭) or nod (頷) and many other common ones, so what was the thought process that led you to thinking that 諒 and 諒一郎 were a priority? @TofuguNico

[TofuguNico]

I’ll have to check and get back to you on this one.

So here’s a little update on 諒: The kanji was originally added a long time ago and while we did consider removing it at the same time as when we removed a couple of other high-level kanji and added supporting vocabulary for others, we decided not to remove this one. We opted to add a supporting vocabulary item for this one rather than removing it because on balance we decided it wasn’t obscure enough to justify removal. The other factor was that we’ve had feedback from learners who were disappointed to see even uncommon items go, so we tend to err on the side of caution when removing.