I have been having a problem with vocab with more than one translation, similar to other vocab. Since it’s difficult to explain, I will cut directly to some examples:
大気 - atmosphere
空気 - air, atmosphere
一代 - lifetime, one lifetime, generation
一生 - whole life, entire life, a lifetime, all through life, one existence, a generation, an age
In the end, I don’t remember which meant what and I have them confused in my head as roughly synonyms, which leads to always failing one or the other in reviews.
Of course, this may be more difficult for me since I’m not a native English speaker. But my question is: is it really necessary to show all possible synonym meanings of a vocab? Wouldn’t it be easier to learn one simple meaning and then learn possible shades of this meaning through experience, reading and using the particular word?
I have learned several languages and I always find some word used in a context or with a meaning I didn’t know, but since it’s normally similar to the meanings I know, I get it and add it to my knowledge. This happens very often for words with rather abstract meanings.