I’ve just been introduced to this kanji and its readings and although I wasn’t facing any problems with memorising it, this trick will definitely make the reading concrete in my mind. Thanks a ton and sorry for your struggles to gain this knowledge
Are there any other useful tricks out there that I should know about?
This is ever so helpful!!! I have struggled with this too. I went to level 11 before restarting a week ago as my reviews have sky rocketed to an unmanageable level and after feeling overwhelmed for days I decided to restart my wanikani journey. The truth is that 月 has entered many of my dreams turning them into nightmares for many many months. So, thank you so much for your post! Once I get to 月 again, I will be like-hello you gorgeous, and not - oh no, not you again
In my years of studying Japanese since 2016, I struggled with this too! I learnt this lesson as well when I was in class just last week. My Japanese teacher explained this concept and I was the only one (out of three students) staring at the whiteboard with pure comprehension and shock.
Bless you OP, this is my first post because your thread showed up in my WaniKani community summary email and just happened to be exactly the info I needed. I feel so much stronger for my next encounter with 月. Thank you!
I’m really glad that this post has been helpful to so many people!
My husband is too. He said he only told it to me as a general rule to help me out and he didn’t imagine so many other people would find it useful too. He’s really happy about it though.
I’ll be sure to share any other nuggets of wisdom he shares with me in the future. It’s sometimes useful to get his prospective on things like this.
From either European mythology or Yin Yang Chinese philosophy, many think of “moon” having a female connotation (along with “sun” for male). I think the reverse may exist but it is less common; sounds like in your WaniKani world it’s the latter .
I was having the exact same problem! I realized by myself a few days ago. Tired of being driven crazy by all the mistakes, I opened all of the vocabs that I had learned one next to the other and then A-ha… with the exception, that’s asking for a number. I read your post thinking you might have another tip But I’m happy to know that’s how Japanese people learn too!
I’ve been thinking about this as I do my lessons the last few days. While it may not actually be a language mechanic, it makes it a lot easier for me to remember it, partially because I can make jokey mnemonics about it. Resident being にん is like “I can kick you out whenever I want” and exceptions can be jokes too, like maniac being じん
In the higher levels and words outside of WK it doesn’t work that way, though, which is what Leebo has been trying to say. It might sound correct at the start, but it isn’t, so it’s best not to internalise a ‘rule’ like this.
There are rules for why each reading is used, it’s just that most of the time the thing that determines the rule is invisible to us as just learners and users of the language (the time period the word was imported).