So I finally unlocked vocab and I’m a bit disappointed to only hear the dictionary form on the verb cards.
Yes, I do know it’s sort of indicated, hidden under “part of speech”, but it’s really cumbersome, there, and not only because that means you’ll have to scroll on, say, Flaming Durtles.
As far as I’m concerned, it should be front and center:
dictionary form, te-form, masu-form
listen to them right after each other
when recalling, query a random form
Thoughts?
That to me falls outside the scope of WK. It’s not meant to teach you grammar, just how to read kanji. 
Sounds like you’d be better served picking up a textbook or using a grammar resource if you want to start learning verb conjugation and then using something like Bunpro as the SRS to practice.
WaniKani is for teaching kanji meanings and readings, not grammar or conjugations. I’d recommend getting a grammar book to study those aspects of the language.
Japanese conjugations are very regular and you really only need the dictionary form to figure out any form of the verb. The only potential exception to this might be the few sneaky る godan verbs, but those are easy to get a hold of from exposure. It’s not like Indo-European languages where the forms are different enough that multiple parts need to be remembered for each verb.
How long have you been studying Japanese? I don’t think there is much to add to the advice of my above compatriots of studying grammar separately.
“Studying grammar separately” is all fine and dandy, but I would argue these forms are important enough to be considered part of the vocabulary. After all, what’s the point in knowing the dictionary form if you read/hear/speak it in a sentence where it more often than not will NOT be in the dictionary form?
I thought WaniKani was supposed to teach you to read?
I agree that learning the USE of these forms is out-of-scope for WaniKani. But the forms themselves SHOULD be part of the learning process.
Besides, forcing people to make an ADDITIONAL anki deck with just the verbs and do the verb reviews twice when WaniKani would provide a perfectly good SRS is incredibly wasteful.
Not by itself - you need grammar and vocab without kanji for that.
On the contrary, including conjugations in WaniKani would be wasteful. There’s no reason to practice conjugations on hundreds of verbs when 10 or so would suffice.
There’s more to conjugation than te- and masu-form, but most, if not all, of the conjugation relies on your knowing these forms, so it doesn’t make sense to learn the verbs without them.
Teach you to read kanji. WK is completely insufficient for actual reading beyond being able to sound out kanji.
A deck to learn conjugations would probably be, what, three dozen or so cards. That hardly seems that difficult.
No, most conjugations don’t rely on either.
I think what you need is this:
Now THAT is just untrue, isn’t it?
No. How are 待たれる or 待たせる (just two conjugations) based in either te or masu form?
You can even add 待たない, 待たなかった, 待とう, 待て, 待てば, 待てる. That encompasses all but four of the casual conjugations. None of them based in either masu or te form.
Thank you, but you’re missing my point.
I’m not looking for conjugation exercises, I’m proposing to enhance the VOCABULARY with useful information that will be greatly helpful in learning the actual grammar.
But it doesn’t enhance vocabulary. Those are not distinct words. Just learn how to conjugate verbs. You’re already going to have to learn tons of grammar to be able to read anyway.
I would go as far to say that the additional information could be overwhelming and cause confusion to beginners, and would just be noise to those already studying grammar/reading elsewhere.
Just to double back on this, you do realize that grammar encompasses vastly more than just verb conjugation, right? Learning te and masu forms are still woefully insufficient to be able to read. That’s not even enough grammar for a level 0 graded reader.
I think I see the point, but it is my understanding that WK’s philosophy is to focus on kanji, with vocabulary being there simply to reinforce kanji. They try not to have too much stuff on the cards on purpose so as not to overwhelm people, and for people who want other features there are a lot of userscripts. I personally would feel like the cards are cluttered if they included conjugations.
I’d like to restate that all the conjugations can be figured out from the dictionary form. I think this is the most important issue with the suggestion. Those conjugations are not best learned through SRS the way kanji are. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any SRS decks on any platform for Japanese feel the need to include conjugated forms or anyone every suggest people memorize any other parts of verbs with the verbs themselves besides the dictionary form.
I don’t think I am missing your point. I think you are missing mine. I say that what you are proposing is useless and you can achieve the intended purpose much better with the exercises.
I would disagree with this. SRS is merely just a way of reinforcing information to aid memorization. Why would learning conjugation be any different to learning how to read a kanji?
[quote=“ms12345, post:18, topic:45055”]
I don’t think I’ve ever seen any SRS decks on any platform for Japanese feel the need to include conjugated forms or anyone every suggest people memorize any other parts of verbs with the verbs themselves besides the dictionary form.
[/quote]
There’s a conjugation deck on Kitsun. Bunpro also has conjugations as part of its SRS as well.
Edit:
Ignore the last part.