When I mistakenly type English for a kanji, WaniKani seems to catch the mistake thankfully. But when I mistakenly type romaji Japanese for an English word (“daidokoro” for kitchen), it doesn’t catch it, and I get it wrong (even though I knew the meaning and how to type it in Japanese).
I don’t know what’s possible with programming, but couldn’t WaniKani learn the romaji for each word, and if typed exactly when expecting an English word, it could give that “un-un” wiggle?
It does shake if you type hiragana.
I don’t think they intend to add this behavior for romaji words, since this question has been brought up many times and they haven’t provided a positive response yet.
While the standard site doesn’t do that, the Double-Check userscript does have that option when you type the meaning when it’s expecting the reading, and vice-versa.
I think that in reviews the bar in the middle changes color so that it’s white when they’re asking for meaning and black when they’re asking for reading. Also if it’s asking for reading there’s the text 答え and if it’s for meaning then there’s something else. Sorry if these tricks don’t help!
If you’re concerned that you might overuse the script, consider trying it with “Allow retyping” unchecked. This way you can keep the warn/shake for “wrong answer type” that you asked about in the OP.
This would also still allow you to enable the option after an answer is marked incorrect, and disable again once the answer has been changed. By consciously going through these additional steps (rather than simply hitting backspace) you might find it easier to reserve retyping for actual typos.
