Hi Folks,
I’m new to Wanikani and just started on a few lessons. One thing I noticed recently is the kanji 女 is shown to be pronounced as じょ when I click on the kanji levels 1 list. I believe this is pronounced as おんな. Was this an error?
おんな= The Kunyomi, Japanese reading.
じょ= The Onyomi, Chinese reading.
When it comes alone like 女 the reading is おんな the Kunyomi reading (Japanese), but mostly when it comes in a compound like 女子= じょし, 女性= じょせい, it uses the Onyomi reading (Chinese)
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^what above user said about chinese and Japanese readings.
No, not an error. Later, you’ll be introduced to the vocabulary word 女 (おんな). But when it’s pink like that, it’s teaching you the most common pronunciation of the kanji when it appears in a word, which is じょ. In later levels, other words with the kanji with that pronunciation will start to appear.
i.e.
王女 (おうじょ)
女王 (じょおう)
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No, most kanji have multiple readings.
This article on onyomi and kunyomi readings might help, but its a lot of info, so you may want to bookmark it and read it a few times as you progress.
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It has 2 kunyomi: おんな, め
3 onyomi: じょ, にょ, にょう
And several more nanori (name readings)
WaniKani doesn’t teach you everything at once, so you only see one there.
The thing you need to remember I think is that the only things that Wanikani teaches that are actual Japanese words and pronunciations is the vocabulary. Learning radicals and learning the kanji are just tools to get to the vocab. The reading you learn with the kanji is not the reading that it’s going to have in every vocab word usually.
Now that makes sense. Thanks everyone!
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