Issue with Learning Kun'yomi first for Kanji

WaniKani
1

Hello, I know I am quite new as I’m only level 4 about to reach 5, but I have regularly encountered an issue when trying to learn kanji and translating them to the vocabulary that they are used in. When WaniKani has me learn the on’yomi reading for a kanji when learning the kanji itself, it really messes with my brain when learning the vocabulary that is also only the kanji, where the kun’yomi is expected. My brain so strongly ties on’yomi reading to the kanji image in my mind that sometimes the kun’yomi doesn’t stick, or if there is a gap between learning the kanji and the corresponding vocab, sometimes the kun’yomi pushes out the on’yomi from my mind, making me lose recognition of what’s expected for the kanji portion.

I know Wanikani has a few things to help with this, having kanij and vocab being different colors can help me remember like “oh this is the purple version of the kanji it has the other reading”. But I have just found that it causes hiccups every once in a while and I was wondering if regularly associating the kanji with the kun’yomi so that the vocab with just the kanji correlates, and then learning on’yomi through Jukugo vocab would be more beneficial to my personal learning.

Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this topic, or has had similar experiences of tripping over solitary kanji vocab because they learned the on’yomi during the kanji learning portion. Thanks for reading!

2

I think actually the meta on this forum is to entirely disagree with you. every few months there’s another thread complaining about the cases where WK is teaching the kun’yomi and not the on’yomi for kanji.

In general nobody seems to agree with my philosophy, which is: hiccups are always part of learning, which is at the end of the day my responsibility, even more so than it is WK’s responsibility to teach. Getting it wrong is a signal to your brain as much as getting it right.

3

Hi rawlingsryl. Yeah, I’ve had similar thoughts. However, over time, I’ve come to work through those confusions. Yes, the colors help. Also, for readings, the system will remind you if it wants the kanji or vocabulary reading. I also add notes with my own mnemonic when I find I’m struggling with a particularly stubborn misremembering or confusion.

Before coming to WK, I used the White Rabbit flashcards. They were excellent, but there were SOOO many readings and meanings for each kanji. I find focusing on one or two highly-used readings more effective, personally. If there are some occasional blips, I’m willing to work through them. My best advice is to trust the process while also developing your own system for dealing with these kinds of hiccups. Good luck!

4

I do actually agree with you that making mistakes is actually key to growing learning and understanding as well. The title maybe isn’t the best for what I meant. It probably should’ve been “I’m experiencing an Issue with learning…” because I don’t think it’s an issue/flaw in Wanikani.

The actual thing I think is slightly a flaw, is that It’s hard to remember at least for me if Wanikani taught me the On’yomi or Kun’yomi for a Kanji when learning it as a kanji itself. because when learning vocab if I cannot remember the reading I’ll try to piece it together, try to create those neural pathways by “showing my work” in a way. However because WK flip flops between teaching On’yomi and Kun’yomi for the actual kanji, sometimes I’m trying to use a Kun’yomi reading in my attempt to remember the reading for a Jukugo vocab. Considering “showing your work” is one of the best ways to solidify your memory of something, I wish it was easier to remember if I was taugh Kun’yomi or On’yomi. Obviously with the sheer number of readings for some Kanji that wouldn’t even matter because there are so many exceptions and whatnot on top of it.

It’s not a big flaw but I like thinking about ways I could improve my learning

5

mmm! なるほど. In that case, I’d say keep going in an error-driven way: if you find yourself not sure whether a reading is on or kun, the next time the kanji comes up, open up the info (if you do it during a review but after you’ve cleared the card, it’s not penalized) and check: on the reading page for the kanji it tells you whether this reading is considered on or kun.

There’s kind of a knack that I think you’ll pick up as you go. I’m not an expert at it yet, but usually if I’m reading and I come to a word that I recognize the kanji for but am unsure of the reading, I can try putting the readings together and see “does this sound like a word?” It sounds like an insane question and it kind of is, BUT you might find that words usually sound like words and things that don’t sound like words are in fact not how you pronounce the word.

Like for example: ここは一体どんな所だっけ。Maybe I learned いち and ひと for 一, たい and からだ for 体 and しょ and ところ for 所 but I’m not sure which one to use here. So I can try sounding it out and see how it feels.

“koko wa ichitai donna sho dakke”

hmm, not quite. “sho” doesn’t sound like a word to me: Japanese would really prefer “shou”, don’t you agree? So let’s assume that 所 is ところ.

“ichitai” also feels a bit much. Like, not wrong per se, but maybe overpronounced. I’m trying to cultivate this feeling when I run into words that end up getting っ’d, where the un-っ’d version feels a bit unwieldy. So if I try that, I’d get “ittai”, which feels fantastic to say, it absolutely sounds like a word, so I think that this sentence is read

“koko wa ittai donna tokoro dakke!?” and it is :slight_smile:

by the way, “ichikarada” and “hitokarada” give me “nah, this is plausibly Japanese, but it sounds more like a name”. For me, I try to use that feeling signal as a sign: “oh, probably I’m combining kun’yomi readings here”. like how 松田 “matsuda” and 山本 “yamamoto” sound like names, but not quite like words.

bonus: you can kinda get a flavor for rendaku in this way as well. Some rendaku is “this just feels so much better to say”, like the b in Ikebukuro 池袋. But sometimes the rendaku helps you distinguish two common words that would otherwise be homophones but maybe should not be, like 心身 and 信心 both being しんしん if you go by pure on’yomi combination.

6

I don’t think that’s a fair characterization, the issue is twofold:

  • WaniKani sometimes teaches the on, sometimes the kun and the lack of consistency is confusing.

  • When WaniKani teaches the kun with a kanji, they’ll sometimes teach truncated readings that make no sense and nobody should waste time memorizing. For instance they have just added 惹 but teach the kanji with the truncated reading ひ (from 惹く)

7

you’re right, i was being unfair. sorry, it was fun for me to be unfair, but it sounds like it was not fun for you.

8

If you are reviewing kanji and use the kunyomi when they are looking for onyomi, or vice versa, it will just warn you and tell you its looking for the other reading. When that happens to me, I type the other reading if I know it, and continue. It’s not “wrong” to put in the kunyomi instead of the onyomi, it’s just not what they are testing. But both are valid kanji readings.

But with vocab it’s different. If the vocab reading is kunyomi, then it actually would be incorrect to use the onyomi because it’s not the valid reading for the stand alone vocab. The kunyomi isn’t just “expected,” but it’s the actual correct reading when it’s alone. That’s why wanikani marks these as incorrect if you say the onyomi accidentally instead, but pink kanji reviews will just warn you. With that in mind, don’t think of the purple vocab review for a kanji as just “another reading” but THE actual reading for that kanji when it is alone. Think of the pink kanji review as testing 1 or 2 readings for the kanji to be used with other kanji, but NOT the reading for when it is alone. Completely think of the kanji review and vocab review as different things.

As for why they are different in the first place, if they were the same you would be learning the same thing twice. It would make reviews easier, but there would be a larger gap in your knowledge with the onyomi. Testing primarily the onyomi when learning the kanji is so you get exposure to both, since the vocab reading is usually kunyomi, but jukugo is usually onyomi. I wouldn’t recommend associating the pink kanji reviews with only the kunyomi and neglecting the onyomi.

It would be more difficult for you if every time you are learning a jukugo vocab, you are learning multiple readings for the kanji that you’ve never seen before. If a jukugo vocab is 2 kanji with onyomi readings, but you exclusively learned kunyomi for the kanji, then now you’re learning 2 brand new readings you’ve never seen before, even though those 2 readings are probably incredibly common onyomi readings. Normally, jukugo vocab is usually pretty easy because its readings you’ve seen before with the kanji. There’s no way to make it any easier than splitting up the onyomi for kanji and kunyomi for vocab. Japanese is just hard. But that’s why its great.

9

Thank you, I totally understand why the kanji review and vocab reviews work as they do. And for your third paragraph, Wanikani, at least at my level, regularly does teach the kunyomi as the kanji reading and kunyomi as the solo vocabulary, and fills that “gap” with the jukugo vocab words to teach the onyomi. As for your point in paragraph 4, yeah that’s definitely an issue with only teaching the Kunyomi. After talks with others in this post my opinion has changed from “Maybe always Kunyomi” to just wishing I’d remember better if a kanji lesson taught me the kun or the on, so if I need to piece together a jukugo word’s reading for a word I forgot, I could work it out or at least try. I regularly accidentally try using a kun reading when doing this. But that’s a me thing.

This was never a post trying to call out that I think Wanikani teaches poorly and should change. Just a personal problem I deal with and wanted to know others’ experience with similar struggles or advice on what can be done. I know why Wanikani teaches this way and can’t honestly think of a better way to do it