Confused by the colours

WaniKani
#1

I’m getting answers wrong because I’m confused by all the colours

I was just asked to type in Japanese…what is ‘fire’. so of course I answered ‘ka’.

then it says I was wrong. and the answer should be ‘hi’.

so I search for fire…there’s blue fire, pink fire and purple fire.

but I thought pink meant apprentice, purple is guru, and dark blue is master and light blue is enlightened.

how do I know when the answer for fire should be ka or hi ?

wouldn’t it be just easier if the question was…what’s the onyomi, or kunyomi ?

#2

The pink means kanji reading, and purple means vocab reading.

The word 火 is read as ひ but the kanji 火 asks for the onyomi か.

#3

Those are just used on the dashboard for displaying stats.

When you’re in a review, you have no way to know if something is apprentice, guru, etc. (unless you have a script installed to display that info) and the colors are based on the category of the item (blue - radical, pink - kanji, purple - vocab).

2 Likes
#4

thx…but what actually does ‘vocab reading’ mean?

#5

Vocab items are words. When you learn a kanji, you just learn a single reading for it outside of the context of any words. When you do vocab items, you are learning the actual words that appear in sentences.

The kanji 火 has a few readings (ひ, ほ, か) depending on which words it appears in… but the word 火 has just one. It’s read ひ.

1 Like
#6

so…‘fire’…is…a radical, and a kanji…and a vocab reading ? if it’s blue, the answer is fire. if it’s pink the answer is ka, and if it’s purple the answer is hi. and I should ignore that pink is apprentice, blue is enlightened and purple is guru. see why this is confusing to a newcomer?

1 Like
#7

Newcomers complain about a number of things, but this is the first I’ve ever heard this complaint.

Also: https://knowledge.wanikani.com/

6 Likes
#8

not a complaint. I’m trying to learn and understand.

3 Likes
#9

I would say it’s a radical item (with the name fire), a kanji item (with the meaning fire and the taught reading of か), and a vocab item (with the meaning fire and the reading ひ).

Yes, though if you answer ひ for the kanji it will shake and give you another chance, because ひ is not “wrong.” But they want to make sure you answer with the one you were taught before you move on. This might seem silly when there are two readings and they are both fairly common, but when there are many readings and some are quite rare, just allowing a rare, obscure answer would be less desirable.

I can see how you got confused, but again, that’s just a dashboard color scheme.

8 Likes
#10

thanks. that’s a very nice and clear response that helps my understanding a lot. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#11

I never really noticed that the SRS level colors and item colors are the same, not really a perfect choice :slight_smile:

1 Like
#12

Before you delve too much further into WK past Lv4, I recommend checking out some scripts for better use of the website. One of them allows you to quickly correct, or ignore answers when you mistakenly type the wrong reading, which can easily happen when distracted.

#13

When inside the lesson and reviews (not on the dashboard):

BLUE: Radical made up English reading
PINK: On’yomi reading.
PURPLE: Kun’yomi reading.

You will always learn the RADICAL first, then the KANJI (On’yomi) and eventually the KANJI VOCABULARY (Kun’yomi)

In your case, you learnt:

Blue Radical 火 = Fire
Pink Kanji 火 = Ka か
Purple Vocab 火 = Hi ひ

Forget about the colors on the dashboard for Apprentice, Guru, etc. Just focus on the colors while inside the review UI.

#14

That’s not actually what the colors mean. Kanji lessons often do teach onyomi, but it’s just the current WK staff preference for which to choose first and not the meaning of the color. Sometimes they teach the kunyomi first, or there is no onyomi.

Some vocab items also aren’t going to be the kunyomi, even at low levels, like 本 or 天.

1 Like
#15

Yes, you are right, my example may apply generally but not to all.

In my case its how I quickly differentiate between the intention of the review (does it want the On’yomi, or the Kun’yomi reading or is it just the radical?)

Btw, lvl 60, impressive.

1 Like
#16

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