地下街 doesn’t accept the most obvious meaning “underground mall”. Instead it forces you to type out “underground shopping mall”.
I frequently have problems burning items that are given as isolated nouns but are actually only used as adverbs/adjectives. For example: 自在 - I always give the wrong answer “freedom”, because when this is presented to me looking like a noun, I’m unable to remember that Wanikani expects “freely” or “flexible”. Would it be possible to turn this into 自在な to have a bit more context in the prompt?
Update: We made a few changes which should hopefully help.
自在 (20) - Moved “freely” from primary meaning to alternative meaning, added “full control” as the primary meaning, moved “flexible” and “adjustable” to the warning list, added “easily,” “effortlessly,” “as one pleases,” “maneuverability,” and “controllability” to the allow list, added “free,” “freedom,” and “universal” to the warning list, updated meaning mnemonic, added five new common word combinations.
Thanks for the feedback! I’ll pass these on to the content team and we’ll let you know what they say.
Not an immediate fix, but it might be worth looking into separating 賄 and 賂, either by level or by adding some nuance to the definition/explanation to help keep them straight. Currently both are on level 38 and have the same meaning, and with the 貝 radical being shared as well, it’s easy to mix them up, especially in those early stages of learning.
And that’s fair, but it doesn’t really help the confusion. If separating them by level isn’t feasible, then maybe one could use an alternate phrasing for the definition, or maybe 贈賄 could be moved down, and 賂 and 賄賂 both moved up instead? 贈 is also taught at the same level, but currently 贈賄 isn’t taught until level 40.
Circling back to my post about this one (額), but this time regarding its vocabulary - 額 (24). Similar in issue, the mnemonic in the vocab mentions three meanings in the kanji, yet there are now only two in that kanji.
Also, WaniKani says that there’s only one meaning for the vocab (Framed Picture/Picture/Frame); however, after getting confused by how there were numerous counter-examples of this in the sentences that were pulled by the Anime Context Sentences script, I decided to search elsewhere and found far more examples of 額 being used to mean “sum/amount” (especially with monetary implication). And to be clear, this is when the kanji is used on its own, which I mention since there are a number of vocab in this level that include this kanji in their compounds that incorporate the “amount” meaning, and I want to make sure you know I’m not including those or other compounds in my assessment.
Relatedly to that last statement, while searching, I did notice that there are a lot of additional vocabulary compounds that incorporate the kanji with the “amount” meaning than are included in WaniKani, but I digress.
For the sake of veracity, I don’t mean to imply an argument for “amount” being the more common use, because I am far from being an expert on this and my searching skills have limits. However, simply, the degree to which it exists with that meaning makes it astonishing to me that it’s not listed here.
I also noticed it having an alternate reading/meaning combination, 額 = forehead, which lines up with the discarded meaning for the kanji, but that’s just an afterthought, not my main point.
May I add another suggestion? The vocabulary 濃度 currently has “density” as its primary meaning and “concentration” as its secondary meaning. Strictly speaking, concentration and density are different things, and the (scientifically) more precise translations are: 濃度 - concentration 密度 - density
However, 密度 is currently no present as vocabulary, the kanji 密 is.
There are quite a few vocabulary items that have only one sample sentence, and that one sentence often only uses one of several possible meanings, and in some cases none of them. This is quite a problem for me, because I rely on the samples to learn what the more abstract words actually mean and how to use them. Here are some of the worst examples I’ve encountered on level 31 alone:
鑑定 - Possible meanings are appraisal, expert opinion and judgement. Only sample sentence uses it as (DNA) test.
既決 (decided, settled) - With this one, I got absolutely no idea what the sample sentence even has to do with the meanings and which function the target word fulfills in the sentence. As someone not very familiar with the US legal system, I also had to google “post-conviction relief” to even understand the English version of the sentence.
印鑑 (seal) - The only sample sentence uses this as part of the phrase “sealed document”. This might be me being a daft non-native speaker of English again, I wasn’t even sure what this means, but my main problem is that there are other possible meanings of the word “seal” and the sentence doesn’t help explain which of them belong to 印鑑 .
Only for people without a shred of imagination
尋ねる - From a learning perspective, the main problem is that the only sample sentence doesn’t illustrate any possible differences between this word and others that also mean “to ask”. But the real problem is that it is gross . Thanks to the detailled description of what it would taste like to eat your own poop , I’m now scared to use Wanikani within two hours before a meal, because it’s so rich in gross detail it just sticks in my mind and ruins my appetite .
We’ve decided to leave both kanji as they are level-wise given but have added both of them to the list of visually similar kanji. Some more details care of Mami:
抽 is more advanced than 押. Also unlike 上 and 下 or 凹 and 凸, these two kanji are not “directly” connected semantically (they are connected, but the relation between the two isn’t explicit like the physical act of pushing vs. pulling.)
These are now part of the list of future additions.
We’ve updated both the meaning and reading hints and mnemonics for 銭 and 桟. As for the meaning for 修, we should have a change for that coming up soon.
We have added this and some related phrases (“be satisfied”, “being satisfied”) to the allow list.
‘Freezing’ is now the primary meaning for this vocab and we’ve also made some changes to the meaning explanation to reflect this.
“12am” and “12 am” has been added to the allow list.
“Family crest” and “family coat of arms” has been added to the allowlist for this vocab.
一巻, another case of being confused by the examples I found in the wild until I looked into it some more.
Maybe one of the context sentences or something can include the seemingly idiomatic usage of 一巻の終わり, i.e., “the end; the end of the line/road; curtains.”
I don’t want to suggest it as a meaning for this word since that’s definitely too far of a stretch.
Hmm. better yet, 一巻の終わり could be a new vocab word.
I wonder if 無い should be added as vocabulary for the 無 kanji? I was surprised to find it’s not on WK since I’ve seen ない spelled with kanji several times.
獣
Currently, only 獣 is shown and accepted, but 獣 should also be accepted, or at the very least, a warning shake about it being an available reading but not the one learned.
. Thanks to the detailled description of what it would taste like to eat your own poop 
, I’m now scared to use Wanikani within two hours before a meal, because it’s so rich in gross detail it just sticks in my mind and ruins my appetite 
.