Heh… may be. 
Does anyone else struggle with remembering when to add a long う? As in きょ vs. きょう
or しょ vs しょう? This is tripping me up regularly. If anyone has a trick to remembering please share…or is it simply grunt work to memorize?
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Yes!!!
And… No, sadly, not really. Saying everything out loud every review (whether it’s asking for reading or meaning) helps a lot, and if I keep screwing those up I try to exaggerate that う, saying “jo-o” for example.
Le sigh. Well it’s comforting to know it’s not just me. I suppose it’s all really grunt work in the end. Plus Ultra!
Make a different mnemonic for each version (and try to keep it consistent across multiple kanji if you can).
There’s a mnemonic somewhere about きょう being the city of Kyoto and きょ being “Little Kyoto” … so I just follow that pattern and try to make the non-う versions “littler” somehow:
しゅう is a normal shoe, しゅ is for someone with tiny feet.
しょう is a big spectacular stage performance but しょ is just one guy playing a guitar.
That sort of thing.
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There is technically a trick to it, but it’s not an easy one. If you listen to a lot of Japanese media very closely, you’ll probably notice that there’s a difference in “sound” in Japanese vowels to most English vowels. In English we use a lot of diphthongs, combined vowel sounds. In Japanese, these sounds are literally notated for you in kana. A lot of Japanese people find English to be funny or embarrassing because of the large mouth movements it requires, and that is because most of our vowel sounds are diphthongs, while most Japanese sounds aren’t.
Take Tokyo (Toukyou) and Kyoto (Kyouto) for example. We English speakers usually naturally pronounce the う because the English long “o” is a diphthong (unless they are the “Tokio” type people; don’t get me started on that). With Kyoto, however, English speakers (again, not counting the Kioto people), English speakers commonly end up saying Kyoutou. This is because we naturally use diphthongs.
Try saying “Toe.” Either your jaw is going to drop or your lips will purse. This is the diphthong effect. If you pronounce “Toe” with movement, you are producing the Japanese equivalent of とう. Now try pronouncing “Toe” again without any part of your mouth except your tongue (for the “t” sound). It will probably feel weird, but doing so will move the “o” sound to your throat, producing a singular, pure sound (hopefully 
). This is the pure と. So in the example of Kyouto and Toukyou-to (adding the modifier for big cities), when you reach the final syllable, try keeping your mouth still as soon as you begin the “t” sound.
If you learn the difference in sound between a pure お and the diphthong おう, it will start to feel weird to use the wrong one each time. An easy example would be 上手 (じょうず) and 女性 (じょせい). In Jouzu, you don’t really have to emphasis the U sound; in fact, that would be weird, since the stress is on the JO part. This pronunciation fits naturally on the English tongue. Josei, on the other hand, lacks the diphthong. Try practicing じょ without moving your mouth until you produce the “S.” It will feel bizarre at first, but it will force the “Jo” to stay pure and allow transition into the “Sei” without an added う.
Since you mentioned きょ vs きょう, I’ll add one last example before I quiet my talkative self. 
Take these two words, 去年 (きょねん, last year) and 享年 (きょうねん, age of death), since this is a practice example (It would be strange to say you traveled somewhere at your age of death!). Kyonen is three syllables (technically morae): Kyo-ne-n. Kyounen is four syllables (morae). You can pronounced Kyounen in the normal English understanding of vowels, moving your jaw/lips to produce the long “o.” With Kyonen, however, try once again, like with “Toe,” to keep your mouth still until you produce the “n.” This will produce a different sounding word (hopefully!).
It’s less a trick and more of a skill to practice, but it will not only help you sound more natural pronunciation-wise but will also make differentiating much easier since they will no longer “rhyme.” Japanese is a very still-mouth, throat-based language while English requires great amounts of mouth movement. Sorry for the text wall, but I hope it helps!
A note: A Mora (plural morae) is a unit of sound sometimes synonymous with syllables though not correctly so. 享年 in English would be two syllables but is four morae, while 去年 is two syllables and three morae. In English, two-morae, single syllable sounds are usually called diphthongs. This is why many Japanese Haiku don’t follow 5-7-5 to an English speaker!
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Hi! How do I gain access to the kanji lessons? Is this the community chat? Thank you
From the FAQ:
I just finished my lessons. Why do I have to wait?
WaniKani has a very specific order. Each item builds upon a previous item, which means that in order to unlock new things you must know everything before it. Because of this, the beginning can be pretty slow. You’re building up a foundation.
In order for the SRS to be effective, you have to wait between reviews. Our goal is to make you review something right before you forget it, as this is effective for building strong memories.
The first set of radicals will probably take you 2-3 days to finish if you do your reviews on time. After this, you’ll unlock kanji. Then, the kanji should take around 2-3 days to complete. This adds up to about a week of study time to complete the first level.
By the time you reach Level 2 or Level 3, the speed will begin to pick up. This slow start is making sure that you’re ready for the later, more difficult materials. Think of it like a filter. If you don’t have the patience to get through the slower initial levels, maybe you don’t have the patience to learn all the kanji. Language learning is very long-term, after al
This is IMMENSELY helpful. Thank you!
Yes, all of the forums are the community chat.
Your kanji will unlock when you’ve gotten your radicals correct 4 times in a row.
To be honest, I’m an American, but I don’t even know who Charlie Sheen is 
…
Occasionally I don’t understand the cultural references either. I just read the mnemonics and accepted them as they were or made my own if I really needed them. Although I clearly can’t speak from the perspective of someone from a different country, I think being American doesn’t mean 100% of these mnemonics will make sense and be useful either. Regardless I think the fact that there’s lots of useful mnemonics is already great as is, as I don’t think I’d be able to come up with thousands of them myself!
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Thank you! Now I understand 
You’re welcome!
Hi everyone. I’m on level 3 right now and my dashboard shows me at 100% for my level 3 radicals and kanji. Am I not being allowed to go up to level 4 because I haven’t become a paid member yet? I figured I would get some sort of clear indication from WaniKani that I have done enough to level up, but need to become a paid member to be allowed to go on.
One other question: is leveling up purely based on knowing that level’s radicals and in turn guruing the kanji or is vocabulary knowledge factored in as well?
To “level up”, you must get 90% of kanji in guru status. Since about half of the kanji depends on getting all your radicals guru’d, it implies that your radicals should also be guru’d. None of the vocabulary is required to be guru’d before levelling up.
Be warned that the whole point of learning kanji is to be able to read some words. Kanji is usually added on to other kanji or hiragana to make a word. If you were to merely learn “-ing”, “-ed”, “pre-”, “post-”, “-tion” etc in English, you would never learn any words.
You need to buy a subscription to access level 4.
Hi guys - I could have sworn there was an update thread saying there were new context sentences for the first ten levels - but I can’t find it anywhere now! Can anyone point me there? I wanted to say that one of the sentences for “whole life” (isshou) was “わたしの父は、しぬまで一生どくしんでした。
He remained single all his life.” Shouldn’t it be “my father” instead of “he”?
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Thank you very much, rfindley 
I sent a quick email. Not even sure if it was one of the new sentences, but oh well!
u need to undergo tutorial first
konnichiwa