Hey there. At the risk of sounding like a complete tool/silly goose, I’m wondering why WaniKani doesn’t except “hurry” as an acceptable answer for “早く”. In movies and anime I watch, a word that (at the least) sounds like 早く gets thrown around often across the board to the point where I began to notice it and assumed I knew its meaning before even starting to learn Japanese. But WaniKani doesn’t accept “hurry” as an answer for “早く”. What is the reason for this? Does “hurry” have its own kanji that just happens to sound exactly the same as “早く”? Please enlighten me, and thanks for your help.
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It’s just how in english, you’d encourage someone to finish a race by shouting “quick, quick!”.
When japanese characters say “hayaku”, they’re really saying “hayaku shite” (“do it quickly”) or “hayaku kite” (“come quickly” / “hurry”). But hayaku by itself just means “in a fast manner”, which is much more versatile than “hurry”.
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Kind of yes, though I think Wanikani still uses slightly different wording for 速く. Focusing on “fast” instead of 早く’s “early.”
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Translations of movies and anime are not going to be perfectly matching. They are localizations, not translations, and will use phrasing that matches the intended usage of the speaker, and not what the exact words mean.
早く is an adverb, meaning quickly, early, fast.
“Hurry!” is a verb in its command form that already carries the meaning of quickly within it.
WK likes to somewhat match the type, so it wouldn’t pick “hurry”. (And people don’t really say “hurriedly” much, which would be how to convert “hurry” to an adverb)
早く! is not a verb, but the general idea that whatever action you’re doing is implied, in the same way that someone shouting “Quickly!” is implying that the action being done (or desired) is what you be done quickly.
In general, expect discrepancies because language translation is rarely 1:1
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I would associate “hurry” more with the 急 kanji personally. 早 is more about early and/or quick.
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Just adding on here:
“Hurry” in English is a verb, while 早く in japanese in an adverb. In describes the way in which an action is done. When a character says this to someone else, they imply that they should be doing whatever they are doing more quickly. Sometimes (if someone is late, for example) this implies an English translation of “Hurry!” but that is not what it means.
A true Japanese verbal expression (just fyi) is 急いで isoide, which is a command (imperative form) of verb 急ぐ isogu “to hurry, to rush.” In context, something you might say to students to finish their work before the bell rings, or a parent may say such a thing to a child who is late for school. It has that kind of vibe to it.
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Thank you to everyone who replied in the thread.