Kunyomi vs Onyomi confusion

I’m looking at the vocabulary for “fu ji mountain” (ふじ山).

I was told the rule for using kunyomi vs. onyomi is that we use the kunyomi reading when there’s one kanji paired with okurigana; In this case, “fu ji mountain” (ふじ山) is 2 hiragana paired with one kanji for “mountain”. The vocabulary page in wanikani is saying that the reading for this is “fu ji san” - isn’t “san” the onyomi reading for mountain? I would think that since there’s only 1 kanji paired with 2 hiragana for “fu ji mountain” (ふじ山), we should be using the kunyomi reading and therefore be reading it as “fu ji yama”.

What am getting wrong? And thanks to anyone reading this

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The main problem is that the only reason the ふじ part is written in hiragana is because they haven’t taught you the kanji yet. You can write it 富士, but those kanji are taught later. They just wanted to take advantage of the fact that people know the mountain already.

So this isn’t an example of there being hiragana attached, really.

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Okurigana usually goes at the end of words.

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Such rule provide general guidance but it has many exceptions.

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Does anyone else find that after a while of doing this, you start instinctively knowing which reading to use when the different vocab pops up? Tbh I don’t focus too much on which reading is onyomi/kunyomi when learning - but then I always try to guess the reading on new vocab before looking at the reading, and I’m nearly always right. I’m getting into the rhythm of it somehow…

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Yeah you get pretty good at it after a while, but you’ll still get tripped up with exceptions throughout the whole process. :wink:

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That makes sense - I was seeing 富士 in other similar posts, which would solve the problem since it’s two compound kanji.

I’m super amateur so thanks everyone for the replies! Have a :cookie:

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