Expected is one thing, (that’s sorta the point of having levels) but certainly there are precocious kids who read, say, the Harry Potter series at six years old. I’m sure there are similar kids in Japan.
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Of course there are kids who are more intelligent than their peers. Srinivasa Ramanujan read advanced (college-level) trigonometry books at the age of 12. But for these talented kids in Japan, it’s no problem whatsoever for them to learn advanced kanji. They might even enjoy it.
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As you say, I’ve hit that kanji block in Japanese. One problem I have with the mnemonics in WaniKani is the need to ‘unlearn’ things I already know, and many of the readings the system seems to want are not the ones I use on a daily basis. For example, 下 in my experience is しも, した, or くだ, but the system wants か, which I would not say is the most common reading.
Normally I end up reading the furigana text and bypass the kanji. I find I read just as quickly.
In this case, both した and か are fairly common. For words using the か reading, on WaniKani alone you have:
地下
以下
地下鉄 (surely you’ve used/heard this one)
廊下
地下街
却下
零下
陛下
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Jisho results for each one when paired with 下
しも - 40
した - 130
くだ - 22
か - 135
げ - 120
I don’t see a problem with choosing か for the one you want to teach people.
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下さい is pretty common in notices, which is when I tend to see it, and しも and した are common in names and directional notices. It’s not so much the overall frequency of the reading in the number of words, but the frequency of use of the words with that particular reading.
Subways, I don’t use. (None where I am.)
You do realize you’re going to learn those other readings as well right?
In any case, you have to choose one in WK’s system, because they don’t want to overwhelm you in the kanji lesson.
I don’t know why I’m bothering to discuss this, anyway. I’ve never seen someone come here to argue against the concept of kanji before.
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Come to think of it, does WaniKani ever cover しも? That’s mostly in proper nouns, right?
I’ve never seen this reading, so I guess not. Unless it’s somewhere in the level 58, 59, or 60 vocab.
You can complain about the inconvenience of Kanji as much as you want, but we can’t change that. The writing system is the way it is and period.
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Well yes as someone who knows not too many kanji you would recognize 下 mainly as した and from 下さい (ください) more than as か. I certainly did too. And it’s typical to read someone in level one say similar things. But! We’re not here to learn what we already know are we?
Once you get used to the way WaniKani divides items into radicals/kanji/vocabulary, it’ll start to make more sense. One thing that I never really considered conceptually before I started WK, is the idea of kanji per se as abstractions, different from actual words or vocabulary. But once I thought of it that way, something clicked.
And that’s why there’s a 下 kanji (pink background) read as か and a 下 vocabulary item (purple background) read した. Of course that か reading is just one of many. (下 has a particularly large number of readings.) But か is arguably the most important, especially when it comes to reading unfamiliar kanji compound words.
This may be another reason to hate kanji, but that won’t do you any good. Instead I’d advocate loving them, even if that means you fake it till you make it.
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So you’re basically complaining that the WK system is not custom-made especially for you. Because if you don’t use subways, then WK should not have the word 地下鉄 because it’s not frequently used where you live? And everybody should just write Japanese in kana for the benefit of children who want to read above their grade? That would be like writing all English-language college-level books in children’s language so little 5-year-old Timmy could read Advanced Special Relativity Theory if he feels like it.
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I think you’re putting words in his mouth. I don’t recall him saying anything like that.
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It was a rather strained reading of “They should teach くだ first because か isn’t very common”, but yeah. Rather strained.
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Of course it’s “rather strained”. So is suggesting that Japanese should not be written with kanji.
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Or maybe look at it a different way. I see a guy who’s obviously got a bad attitude when it comes to kanji, an attitude that comes from years of frustration and being unable to find a way to learn them, and feeling illiterate in the country where he lives. He’s come to WaniKani because he would like to learn kanji in spite of himself.
I totally get why people would feel hostile with him coming in to this forum and announcing that he hates kanji, the thing we’re all trying to learn. (I keep imagining someone who signs up for a woodworking class announcing that he thinks wood is the worst material known to man.) But he hasn’t attacked anyone on this forum, so I think it would be more productive for all of us to be as understanding and welcoming as possible, and help guide him towards a path of enlightenment rather than mocking him.
I know that sounds idealistic and a little cheesy, perhaps, but personally, I find this kind of thread more refreshing than some of the threads we see where someone comes in at level one full of enthusiasm and bold announcements that they plan to be kanji wizards and fluent in the language within a year, etc, etc, and they keep writing new posts about how great everything is… and then a month later, they are never heard from again as they’ve flitted off to a new passing fancy.
Of course, whether he actually gets anywhere with WaniKani is ultimately up to him, and the community can’t affect that. It just doesn’t hurt to hear his pain and gently try to turn his attitude around rather than hardening his dislike for all things associated with kanji and making him feel unwelcome.
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I am old. 
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Well now I’ve got “Father and Son” stuck in my head…
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