I really wish the new vocabulary items had audio. It’s a big part of my learning, and the option of having audio play automatically while learning/reviewing vocab is great. However, when it doesn’t play, at least for me, the item doesn’t “click” as well. Plus, it makes it harder to know the pitch accent (you don’t learn it from hearing it).
Edit: Looks like they are adding the audio soon. Thanks @alo for pointing their post out!
I wouldn’t mind not having audio if there were vocab which appear in novels. Fantasy, sci-fi, science type words for level 60 - 70. Sometimes I listen to the audio, but only if I feel a bit tongue tied. I’d rather have new interesting kanji/compounds without audio or context sentences but still spoonfed within the WK structure than not having them because there wasn’t enough free time to make quality audio.
Yeah, me too. The last 10 levels in particular were harder with Kanji that had no vocab so I didn’t know how they sounded.
The new vocab, at least, has corresponding vocab with audio, but it’s not the same.
This just started happening for me within the last couple of weeks. I wonder if it’s related to the recent changes they’ve been making to the WaniKani audio player.
No, that’s a different issue. The one we’re talking about are the content additions that are rolling out weekly for the rest of the month:
They don’t include the audio recordings yet. For example, 外す:
Thanks for the info. I don’t like this - I would very much prefer that they wait to add the vocab until they have the audio to go with it.
Yeah I’d agree… like there’s no rush to add these new vocab sprinkled in through the levels, could have just taken the time to wait for audio to be recorded for them.
totally agree. Audio is super helpful
Well, on the whole I do agree. It feels really strange whenever I do a vocab item review, type the reading and don’t hear it. It always makes me think I made a mistake 
I demand a 10% discount for when I reach level 4 and pay for the annual subscription : D
I love the audio too. Helps me internalize the correct way to say the words instead of english-izing it in my mind.
There are around 6300 vocab items, if only these newly added ones lack audio, that’s 0.2% - if they gave you a discount based on the percentage of items missing audio I’m afraid that wouldn’t save you much 
One thing this thread made me realize was I’ve sort of lost the feeling of first starting out.
In case you didn’t know, Japanese writing is completely phonetic. There is absolutely no variation from spelling to sound. I realized that I take it for granted that everyone knows this and every pronunciation is obvious, but now I sort of feel bad.
I don’t know if it’s a permanent thing but actually you get a 20% discount when you sub at level 4 if you email the team at hello@wanikani.com I’m sure they’ll be able to help.
One of the things I’ve noticed about WK is that the mods are very active and so is the email, so there is a lot of support. I’m sure you’ll get a quick response 
Edit: it is Sunday today, so if you email them today don’t expect an answer for a day or two. I’m sure they’ll have tons of emails to catch-up on tomorrow!
Well at least they didn’t add new audio without vocabulary. That would be confusing.
Most people know this by now. The problem is the pitch accent, which is very difficult to nail down for some people. The audio and the script that I use, the WaniKani phonetic pitch info, greatly helps in reinforcing how a vocabulary should be enunciated in speech. Without the audio on WaniKani, some people may not know the difference in pitch accent between 雨 and 飴、花 and 鼻。
Do you mean the kana? Because if you’re talking about 形声文字 they only make up about 80% of Jouyou Kanji.
I was also very disappointed that the new vocab doesn’t have audio. Beyond the fact that I’m using WaniKani to learn kanji and not transitive/intransitive verbs so I didn’t like the content update in the first place, rushing it out without audio just seemed like insult to injury and I did those lessons feeling bitter.
Oh really? I was just kidding about getting a discount but it would be great. Discounts are always great!
I will try my luck 
Yeah, as @sinkiepwnsinkie said, the issue isn’t with the phonetics that come from hiragana/kana in general, but instead the pitch accent. The phonetics are consistent, but the pitch when you are speaking a word/sentence are different. This is the main issue for me, without pitch sometimes saying single words will be confusing. Although Japanese does depend on some level of context based on the limited number of 'phones.