Super common, so much so it’s one of those words I learned way before starting wanikani, it’s so basic and beginners material tends to use it a lot.
1 Like
Hm yeah, sigh could be a good replacement. Cyborg isn’t too bad though, I am usually able to remember it, I’ve just been mixing it up a lot lately.
That list helps, although aren’t there still some times when a kanji within a word is read as さい but doesn’t rendaku? I think that’s what’s maybe been getting me, unless I am crazy and I am misremembering. Still I think I also sometimes just mix up さい and ざい so I think what you’ve said is still useful, I just need to remember the ones that are actually ざい better I guess.
2 Likes
I edited the sentence and added ‘both’ to the sentence to clarify, sorry for the confusion.
What I meant was that all the さい and ざい readings remain the same and doesn’t change no matter where they are placed in a compound. So basically, all the さい remain as is no tenten/rendaku what so ever.
If you click those links you’ll get the full lists of kanji and vocabulary for ざい and then for さい it will give you the full picture. I checked it to see that what seemed to be the case so far is really consistent across the board, and it is.
Coming to think about it, I might do this search for other kind of readings, there might be some kind of trend I’m not aware of that could help with other leeches. who knows.
3 Likes
My reviews just came up with 経済. 済 is a さい reading, but gets rendakud in this word to ざい. I don’t know if I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying, but I think this goes against what you said? I’m not sure. Either way, it’s this kind of thing that had been making me get stuff wrong a bunch. Just failed this vocab by typing けいさい.
2 Likes
I checked it again and my bad, still very short list though, and the rest is bulletproof
so it’s basically only 4 kanji and 6 instances
the first we already learned:
飴細工 sugar sculpture
the second, you’ve learned and I haven’t yet, and it doesn’t have a さい reading in its vocabulary on wanikani only ざい and it is (ごめん 
) what you’ve failed and its cousines
経済Economy
経済学Economics
経済的 Economic
and then these two which you must be familiar with at least the last one, and if you’ve ever watched or read sparks 花火 you might be familiar with manzai
漫才comic dialogue, comic double act (level 46)
万歳 banzai, hooray (level 50)
So all you have to do is remember that your use of さい is coming to an end and becomes ざい when it turn into anything that has to do with economics. So it is really a specific and consistent exception here.
2 Likes
Mm yeah I guess I can ignore the higher levels for now and just try and remember economics just changes it to ざい, and remember the candy sculpture change too somehow. But that is a pretty short list so it’s doable. I’ll see how I go and try and note anything that gives me trouble. Thanks
2 Likes
I really hope it will help you, it already helped me with economy (finally reached that word).
Funny enough, I didn’t write Raising Your Hands for 万歳 and I was wondering about it when I saw it as part of the meaning.
Well, this morning I started playing Ring Fit adventure again, and while it was kana, nevertheless, hearing the instruction while exercising was pretty awesome. Wouldn’t understand it without going through that list of exceptions I’ve made.
You can see it in the pink box, katakana in this case, but it is a Japanese word and it is probably more of a styling choice.
So far the engagement with this thread and with people problematic mnemonics like this one
Really makes a difference. I find myself dealing with potential leeches way before I learn them, so when I do get to that word, I already have some clue and it makes it easier to remember.
3 Likes
Agh, 私財 tripped me. It has both ざい and さい as onyomi which I didn’t consider.
But yeah, you’ve definitely helped a lot already, I passed something else that was problematic just now but forgot what it was.
Putting ring fit in Japanese sounds kinda fun, I sometimes turn Japanese on in other games but it’s kind of difficult at the moment. Haven’t played ring fit in a long time though.
Yeah that’s great that you can stop leeches before they happen, I find it useful to see what everyone else is having problems with too and talking about them 
2 Likes
Awww 
maybe try to put them all together in a way that will never make you forget which is which
the 財閥 stole my 財布 with all my 私財!
Oh it’s pretty awesome, I wasn’t sure but since I’ve switched my Switch to Japanese it’s the default regardless of which language I chose for it before, so I took a leap of faith and it’s really fun that way. It’s also the healthiest immersion option for me right now, so it’s a win win all around. I sit and study for hours, starting the day this way is so much better. I really hope I stick to it, I love exercising but lately I just couldn’t find a way to reconnect to it the way I used to.
2 Likes
What’s with the mnemonic for 家? The radical just says it’s the same as the kanji and the kanji just says its the same as the radical.
I’ve seen before where when the kanji is the same as the radical it will just reference the radical mnemonic, but in this case it’s just completely circular.
2 Likes
That would be brilliant if it was the kanji for ‘recursive’
5 Likes
Haha, that’s probably a victim of content adjustments. @Mods ?
1 Like
Oh wow, how many beginners are thrown into an endless loop with this 
I wonder if you can guess what was the mnemonic for it though… I can tell you it was a very an eventful boring straight forward one using those 2 radicals.
That is pretty weird. It still lists roof and pig as radical though despite saying it uses the house radical haha.
This seems to be the mnemonic, found an old version of it:
Under this roof is a pig. Your pig, because it’s your house! You keep your pig inside where it’s nice and warm. He’s a member of your family, so he deserves to live in your home too.
Picture the little pig, prancing around happily under the roof of your house.
3 Likes
Ah, it must have been an oversight during content updates. I did a quick search and it looks like it’s been fixed now 
Let me know if there’s something I’m missing though.
2 Likes
It doesn’t look like it was fixed for either of them, the radical page still reference the the kanji and the kanji page references the radical however the radical composition is still roof and pig instead of house.
1 Like
Oh, I see where you’re coming from now. I will pass that along to the team to take a look at. We’ll share any updates we have here!
4 Likes
@mamimumason confirmed on the update page the radical page was changed and has the mnemonic now, which I can indeed see, told her about the radical combination, so it will probably be fixed soon as well.
2 Likes
That’s great! Thanks again for all of you sharing this with our team 
3 Likes
Thank you for quickly feeding it back to the team and updating the content!
2 Likes