'Optional'/alternative meanings and readings

Does anyone else get a little thrown by these? It’s like WaniKani is saying, “You don’t need to know these but here they are anyway, and we’ll accept them as correct answers…”, which kind of makes me think you should know them. I feel like they can add to the confusion a bit – not so much the meanings, but more so the readings. Memorising readings is tough enough, without having alternatives thrown at you!

You’ll use them in vocabulary to come, for the most part. :slightly_smiling_face:

They get accepted because people don’t want to get marked wrong for something that is technically not wrong.

EDIT: And if you mean for kanji, yeah, you’ll use all the parts of the kanji eventually. For vocab, when there are legitimate alternative readings, one is usually more common than the other, but if they’re both valid for a given meaning, they both need to be accepted.

I came across a vocab the other day (can’t remember which) where it was the first time I’d encountered the reading but the notes said “you should know this already.” I was all up in arms and ready to complain on the forums, but when I checked the kanji page, lo and behold, it said “you should learn this one too.”

I wouldn’t stress about it for now, it will just be a minor hiccup later on if you forget.

Makes sense, thanks!

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