Hypothesis, preparation, expectation, plan

[Davidos]

Hey folks. Anybody got any tips for differentiating between all the different but similar words which mean hypothesis, expectation, plan, preparation? If I was able to list them I probably wouldn’t have to ask the question Just hoping someone’s had the same problem and figured it out. They have radicals in them like determine, concept, beforehand… Yeah maybe ‘beforehand’ is the common factor. I should probably consult the entry on that radical…

[prouleau]

@Davidos

And I have no idea what level that kanji might have been on…

I can’t answer OP question but I can point out that kanji beforehand is level 9.

[zEUs_Japanese]

There is a search function on the dashboard.

But to help you a little bit:
There are three similar words (assumption - 仮定, plan - 予定, hypothesis - 想定) that all share the Kanji “determine” - 定.
But then there also exists the word “expectation” - 予想 (very similar to assumption), which features both “beforehand” - 予 and “concept” - 想, two Kanji also found in the words above, but not 定.

All the three words for “preparation” that exist on WK are vastly different, so imo no need to differentiate them. Maybe you meant an alternate meaning of one of the already listed words, but even then I don’t know which one you would be thinking of.

[zEUs_Japanese]

The reason as for why the beforehand-radical doesn’t make up the beforehand-Kanji is because WK’s radicals aren’t necessarily the real radicals, but mostly try to serve the efficiency of the mnemonics. When the beforehand-Kanji was introduced, it got explained to you with the mama- and street-radical. Then WK made a choice. There are a lot of Kanji that use the entire beforehand-Kanji as a radical for theselves, so should WK really each time explain these Kanji using the mama- and the street-radicals, even though you’ve already learned to recognise the combination of them as “beforehand” and it would be two radicals instead of one which simplifies things? No. And that’s how some Kanji are only introduced as radicals after they were already shown as a Kanji.

[anon8142279]

@zEUs_Japanese

The reason as for why the beforehand-radical doesn’t make up the beforehand-Kanji is because WK’s radicals aren’t necessarily the real radicals

… incidentally you can look up the “real” radicals on jisho.org: 予 #kanji - Jisho.org

[zEUs_Japanese]

preparation for me are those three:

Maybe you sometimes enter “preparation” for one of the others and it shows “You’re answer was a bit off” because it confuses it with one of the real meanings?

[zEUs_Japanese]

@Davidos

It’s normal that sometimes we might need to do a bit of extra work to disentangle things, sort out leeches or pin down meanings.

I feel you on that part. I think from doing WK alone I still got a relatively good overview of how Kanji work and how to find and distinguish leeches, but sometimes I’m also looking bewilderdely at my screen and asking myself why WK made me learn these things in such a complicated manner. With Vocab I wish they would point out usage and differences to the other words that WK offers a lot more. And for Kanji it’d be nice to have them ordered and explained in their phonetic groups. Sometimes there are radicals that make all the difference. I don’t think there is a single Kanji with the shellfish-radical that is not read か (it’s not entirely true, but close to reality). But is it ever mentioned by WK? No.

[alo]

@Davidos

It’s normal that sometimes we might need to do a bit of extra work to disentangle things

In my first year of WK I tried to figure out the nuances of similar words and it never really stuck. In my second year I started reading and seeing them in context like that just made them stick a lot better.