Recently I’ve been having problems differentiating the readings for 勢い and 災い. Not because they look alike or even have similar readings, but because of the mnemonics:
“There is so much force behind you, that when you come at me, I can’t help but scream:‘EEK! OI! (いきおい), get away from me!’”
“When a disaster strikes, you start moaning and groaning. Say it along with me: ‘Wahhhhh! Zaahhhh! Waahhhh!’ (わざわ)”
Both of these mnemonics are just sounds you exclaim and have no real meaning in my head. I don’t see why you couldn’t scream out either one in either situation. To a lesser extent I’ve had similar problems with other mnemonics that don’t use words or names like 祝う.
I know I should probably just sit down and think of a new mnemonic since the premade one isn’t helpful to me. But I was wondering if anyone else has had problems with these kinds of “noise” based mnemonics? Any tricks you use to tell them apart?
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Basically with these “mnemonics” you just need to remember the reading 
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Good point! These exclamation-based mnemonics don’t seem super helpful. We’ll look into these and see if we can come up with something better.
Thanks for bringing this up!
Update: The mnemonics for 勢い and 災い have now been changed.
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Speaking of exclamation-based mnemonics, 映る and 写る have similar readings and mnemonics and I wonder if they are actually the same word in the same way 暑い and 熱い are, because Wanikani doesn’t mention a relation.
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These new mnemonics feel very good!
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I also think the new mnemonics are way better.
Thank you! 
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They are to some extent! They differ in nuance/usage, however.
写る and 映る spring out of the general concept of 移る (also read うつる, level 30), meaning “to be shifted or transferred”, in order to talk about the image of something showing up somewhere else. In 写る’s case, that would typically be in photographs, and for 映る, it’s in reflections or projections (which includes the contents of screens, like those of TVs or computers).
Sources
The beginning of the entry in Nihon Kokugo Daijiten J-J dictionary states:
うつ・る【映・写】
〘自ラ五（四）〙 （「移る」の意から転じたもの）→ Taken from the concept/idea of “移る”.
I’m not including the definitions given in that entry though, because they don’t distinguish between the 写る and 映る kanji (which is an interesting choice). Instead, we can look to the Daijisen J-J Dictionary entries for 写る and 映る. I’ve included and translated the relevant areas (and removed the examples they gave for the sake of concision):
うつ・る【写る】
〘動ラ五（四）〙《「移る」と同語源》 → Same origin as “移る”
1 写真に姿・形が現れる。写真が撮れる。→ Figure(s) or shape(s) appear in a photograph. A photograph is taken.
うつ・る【映る】
〘動ラ五（四）〙《「移る」と同語源》 → Same origin as “移る”
1 姿・形・影などが、反射や投影によって、他の物の上に現れる。→ Figure(s), shape(s), shadow(s) etc., appear on other objects due to reflection or projection.
2 映像がスクリーンやブラウン管などの上に現れる。→ An image appears on a screen, a cathode-ray tube (i.e. on TV), etc. ※ Somewhat irrelevant translation note: ブラウン管, i.e. “Braun pipe”, is the word for in cathode-ray tubes because Japanese because a German physicist named K. Ferdinand Braun invented it. They’re no longer used in TVs, showing that this dictionary entry was written prior to the 2000s.
It would likely be confusing or cause interference to talk about a level 30 vocab on level 13, but I’ve still added a note to 映る’s reading explanation on the differences between it and 写る.
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Wow, thank you so much hmfor the detaoled explanation and sources!
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