Currently I’m at level 10 in my studies, but I often run into kanji that look completely unrelated yet share the same English meaning. This makes them difficult to distinguish because a single translation doesn’t show the nuance between them.
For example:
思 and 考 are both translated as “think”
林 and 森 are both translated as “forest”
正 and 当 both appear as “correct”
When you’re learning kanji, it’s hard to understand the difference. You need to go into the glossary or check each word where those kanji are used and look at the context, which is frustrating. I like how it’s done in BunPro, where each item has a “Related” list that briefly describes how one thing differs from another.
Though I’m new to WaniKani (only level 5 so far), I understand your pain. That’s because outside of WK I’ve been struggling with synonyms or “almost synonyms” too, e.g. 遅れる vs. 遅刻する or 匂い vs. 香り etc. When I have words that seem to be similar, I often end up looking in several dictionaries and making rather special Anki notes.
That said, I think that it’s probably OK to associate kanji with general ideas, rather than very specific meanings. Where we need to drill down to exact meanings with the vocabulary, because only the actual words have very specific meanings. As far as I can tell so far, WK’s meaning descriptions are helpful, though some are better than others.
(Though I’m only level 5, I know a lot of kanji meanings already. I started with WK because I was having trouble remembering on’yomi readings and I’m hoping the mnemonics will help. Besides, I really like Tofugu’s website.)
You don’t need to fixate too much on the meaning of kanji because you’ll get a better idea of how to use them when they’re presented again in vocabulary. Pay attention to the vocabulary context sentences to grasp the nuances and differences.
Around the time you hit the “intermediate plateau” in your immersion, nuance will start to come naturally. For example, you will see that 思 is often used in ”＿”と思う (“_” is what I think), while 考 is often used for the action of thinking. Don’t think about it too hard and focus on just getting the general meaning. Immersion will sort out the rest.
Cindy_B’s suggestion is essentially my approach. I don’t get too fixated on nuance the first time I come across anything. My focus is initially on “associate squiggly lines with an idea” and knowing how to differentiate kanji that have a very similar appearance.
I’ve been speaking English for 40+ years now and still learn the subtleties of English word meanings. My Japanese reading comprehension is maybe that of a third-grader at the moment, so I don’t think it’s realistic to expect to capture deep intricacies at this phase.
What I have ended up doing is I just straight up ask Google to help me grasp the nuance and often I’ll be like “I know OO really means OO so what’s the Nuance here with this kanji instead?” and often times it’s extremely good at helping clarify the nuanced difference between things. For example 旅行 (りょうこう) means travel or trip, 運転する(うんてんする) means to drive, 動く(うごく) means to move. But then Wk says that 走行 (そうこう) means traveling, moving, and/or driving. So Why!? Well turns out 走行 (そうこう) carries the Nuance of mechanical vehicle movement something that can happen on its own so yes theoretically in a sentence 走行 (そうこう) might be translated to moving, driving, or traveling but the word itself refers to the mechanical movement of the vehicle.
Also a level 10 word is preserve 保(ほ) used in things like 保険 (ほけん) meaning insurance. But unlike English 保 does not have a connotation of being able to preserve food and instead is more like maintaining protection.
The issue for wanikani is: How do they maintain the nuance for so many different words but not make the meaning so intricate that it’s hard for a person who just wants to come in do their couple of lessons and get done for the day. It’s a really fine balance that WK has to walk. I think that they really are doing the best that they can to not only help us learn the Japanese language but release a product that is still easy to use. Think about it, is it really necessary for us to memorize the exact Nuance of each individual kanji, everyday, for years on end? Or is it good enough for us to be taught the gist / essence 要点(ようてん) of a kanji then slowly layer the exact nuance as we memorize relevant kanji adjacent vocabulary?
I personally think a better balance could be struck between what wk currently defines and translates kanji and vocabulary too at this time. But I think for what it is and for how much time they spend on it that they’ve done the best that they could and they continue to refine it.
I agree with what most people are saying- you can have a general understanding of what a word means, but as you get more immersed in Japanese whether it’s through reading, watching, listening, or conversation, you’ll pick up the differences and nuances!
Whenever I come up to a kanji that seems to mean the same thing as another (死 vs 亡 as another example), I usually just google it to try to figure out the nuance involved. I am not the first English speaker to learn Japanese and I can use that to my advantage.
However, from already knowing both English and French, it’s really common that a word in one language will translate directly to a word in another language, but it wouldn’t be the “correct” word to use or it would sound awkward to use that word instead.
A good one for me was 分かる and 知る both effectively mean “to know” (yes, I know the former is “to understand”, but it carries the meaning of knowledge). It made sense that one word was understand and one was know (after all, English has two words) until I came across 分かる used in a sentence that translated to “I know”. It turns out that 分かる is more often used for personal knowledge and 知る is used for more objective knowledge. If you were asked about the speed of light, you would use 知る. However, if asked about what your dad is doing this weekend, using 知る would imply a cold unfamiliarity.
When going through, I add these as synonyms on the others’ cards with small notes differentiating the two. It would be a huge value add if wanikani added a little extra comparative sentence to the end of the meaning mnemonic section where it covers little bits of nuance to push you in the right direction.