Including difference betweeen 暖かい vs 温かい, 熱い vs 暑い in WaniKani

[Buscadon]

I just got the word 温かい (あたたかい) in my lessons and noticed that it is just translated as “warm.” Obviously this isn’t a wrong translation, but shouldn’t there be a note pointing out that 温かい is more for warm things and 暖かい is more for air temperature? I know that they make indirect references to it in the reading explanation, and of course all of the context sentences are talking about objects, but even so I think there’d be a lot of people who would not pick up on this, myself included.

Similarly, while I don’t know 暑い and 熱い are marked as different in WK, it’d be worth putting a note in there if they aren’t.

[Saida]

@Buscadon

暑い and 熱い

暑い has hot weather as a meaning, while 熱い has hot thing as a meaning.

[anon91534895]

@Buscadon

Obviously this isn’t a wrong translation, but shouldn’t there be a note pointing out that 温かい is more for warm things and 暖かい is more for air temperature?

There is in the meaning section of 暖かい.

@Buscadon

I know that they make indirect references to it in the reading explanation, and of course all of the context sentences are talking about objects, but even so I think there’d be a lot of people who would not pick up on this, myself included.

Indirect? The meaning explanation clearly says:

Though this is for a warm weather or temperature, not some warm food or something like that, that would be 温かい,

That seems like a fairly direct contrast of the two words to me.

[Buscadon]

Oh, thanks for the clarification!

[Buscadon]

Thanks for pointing this out!
And to be clear, when I was saying “indirect,” I’m talking about the description of 温かい, not 暖かい.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t 暖かい found at level 32, and 温かい at 12? I feel like that’s a lot of time for not knowing that there are multiple Kanji forms of あたたかい with different meanings, wouldn’t it be more worth a more direct note in the 温かい section, like “this kanji describes warm things”, even if you’re not going to teach 暖かい until later?

I mean, this is about the most direct reference to warm objects that I see in the Kanji or Word explanation:

[Leebo]

@Buscadon

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t 暖かい found at level 32, and 温かい at 12? I feel like that’s a lot of time for not knowing that there are multiple Kanji forms of あたたかい with different meanings, wouldn’t it be more worth a more direct note in the 温かい section, like “this kanji describes warm things ”, even if you’re not going to teach 暖かい until later?

Not arguing that there shouldn’t be a note or something, but it’s probably a good idea when you learn a new kunyomi word to just assume that there are other ways to write it until you confirm otherwise. Like ひ (sun) can be 日 or 陽 (but 日 can also mean “day” while 陽 can’t), and こ (child) can be written 子, 児, or 仔 (where 子 is the broadest, 児 is only for very young children, and 仔 is for baby animals).

I guess the only difference is that all the stuff I just mentioned is never taught on WaniKani at all, and it’s also not super important to know, because those other usages aren’t going to appear often anyway.

But I guess the point is, you should always be prepared to find out that a word has other ways to write it, especially if it’s a basic word.

[Buscadon]

Oh wow, thanks for the info Leebo! I had no idea that 児 was related to 子, thanks for that info. You have a good point, I’ll definitely keep your last comment in mind as I learn new Kanji in WK and from other sources.

I know that you said it’s not super important to know, but do you maybe know of a list of words with different kanji representations that are kinda important to know?

[alo]

@Buscadon

but do you maybe know of a list of words with different kanji representations that are kinda important to know?

Let’s put it this way, outside of the stuff you learn in the first year of Japanese like 熱い／暑い, I have come across enough of them to know that there’s a lot but not frequently enough to feel the need to make a list.

I feel like WK covers enough of the important ones for me.