上がる (To rise)、上げる (To raise)、下げる (To lower)、下がる (To get lower)
I can remember their readings perfectly fine, but they’re level 1 vocabulary words and I honestly still can’t find any good way to remember their meaning
Any tips?
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This isn’t a rule for all vocab, but for these it might help to notice that the がる ones are intransitive (the subject raises / lowers itself), and the げる ones are transitive (the subject raises/lowers something else).
For the 上がる・上げる pair, it might help to remember the ~あげる grammar pattern if you’ve learned that or heard it somewhere before, that helped me to at least get that one straight.
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Hello!
I recently made it past those words. What I did was try to remember that the words for “to raise” and “to lower” have “eh” sounds in them, while the words for “rise” and “fall” (I chose to memorize “fall” instead of “to get lower” to avoid confusion) have “ah” sounds.
This way, I was able to remember the readings and the meanings. 
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I had some trouble as well. I remember that あがる means to rise because there is actually an ‘a’-sound in rise. あげる on the other hand has the ‘e’-sound that you can imagine if you say ‘raise’ with an indian accent.
For 下がる i only tried to link the ‘a’-sound to 'A’ctively falling/ getting lower. Doesn’t make as much sense, but sill helped me
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This.
The -aru/-eru intransitive/transitive thing is pretty common across a lot of vocabulary.
固まる 固める
始まる 始める
変わる 変える (there’s no ‘we’ in modern Japanese)
止まる 止める
締まる 締める
Etc etc
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There are some words that use different patterns, but that one is definitely good to keep in mind!
Read this and you will get these right 90% of the time.
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Those caught me out for so long too. There’s an app called Taji that will help you learn pairs of transitive/intransitive verbs like this - I highly recommend it as a complement to wanikani.
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So this is my way of remembering it. The “a” sounds are things that would happen to you. So, I imagine being taken by surprise, either rising or falling, and shouting “ahhhhhh”. If I was raising or lowering something else (the “e” verbs) I would know what was coming and wouldn’t shout out of surprise. Hope that helps!
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I tell them apart by imagining my shock when I discover my direct object went missing. “GAH! Where did my direct object go?? It was right here!”
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I used to have this issue with those, but its more due to the fact that my English sucks lol, transitive, intransitive, adverbs, progressive etc wuh. (I should have paid more attention in school)
Nobody mentioned Cure Dolly yet?
Ha! Not being omunned this time!
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I imagine using my legs to lift or lower my butt with が and using my hands to lift or lower a box with げ 
You’re not alone, I still have problems remembering transitive and intransitive verbs, but the main thing that helps is remembering that げ is something you do to something and が is something you do to yourself. For some weird reason my mind thinks it should be the reverse, but WaniKani is helping tremendously with me finally getting it straight. I hate seeing that red bar when I miss an answer.
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This helped alot, thank you so much!!
This also a problem for me, as someone who “learned” the pattern of japanese sentences through massive exposure. I can understand them in context, who’s doing who or if the verb is done, but when ask in isolation, I have trouble. I’m the type to know that some sentences are grammatically wrong, yet cannot explain it. I just recently learned what those transitive/intransitive verbs as well.
This thread is a lot helpful, and like others, the “a” and “e” sounds helped me minimize the leeches 
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