I have collected all the する verbs in WK that already exist in their form without the -する suffix (for example, 決定 already exists on level 9 but then you get 決定する on level 11).
In total, I found 79 such する-verbs. Compared to the total number of vocabs (6352) it’s a small number. However, it can get quite tedious learning these vocabs, especially on levels where they tend to accumulate. For example, between levels 21 and 41 (inclusive) there is at least one such vocab in every level, totalling 57 items.
I’m not advocating for the removal of all these items. Especially on lower levels it can be useful to learn them. There are also exceptions such as 混乱する which means “to be confused” and not “to confuse [someone]”. But do we really need 79? Do we really need to learn that 輸入する is “to import” when we already know that 輸入 is “import”?
How about removing some of these and replacing them with other words that are more useful such as 曖昧 or 語彙, or even nanori readings of most common Japanese person names such as 鈴木 or 井上?
Redundant vocabs have me to spend a lot of time dissecting examples and trying to find a teeny tiny difference… sometimes in vain. And even if they say: the more synonyms of a word you know, the more fluent… I agree this can achieve the opposite result and make us confused, afraid to use the wrong vocab in a given context.
Totally agree and thanks for making the list !
I remember being quite annoyed by those する verbs when doing my run. Looking at the stats I understand now why. It’s not that there is hundred and hundred of them, but there is still enough to get one or two for each level, so it was a constant little reminder that we could have more interesting vocab instead of repeating the obvious one.
On a much smaller scale the i-Adj+さ felt also a bit pointless.
Those are just regular kunyomi readings for those kanji (well, 井上 is a little weird if you’ve never seen hidden の or が before) but we’ve been waiting for names for a while.
Yeah, a lot of the verbs feel redundant and like busywork, to be honest. But I think WaniKani also wants to keep a balance of nouns, adjectives and verbs so your vocab is functional, but I feel that teaching them separately is a little annoying.
Using it as a verb in an example sentence would be enough for me to recognize that it’s a verb-able word.
There are some cases where the noun version and the verb version of the same word have different meanings. In that case, it would be appropriate to have them as separate items so it sticks out.
I would rather have them than not have them. I wouldn’t feel comfortable just assuming every two-kanji word that lacks a specific verb item on WK is a suru verb. I also don’t mind the reinforcement of the kanji, as that’s ultimately what WK and the vocab is for, not for learning all the Japanese vocab you could ever need.
Agreed, this is much better than having to assume stuff.
Wanikani isn’t a game, it’s a study tool, and studying can be redundant, tedious, it’s work, etc.
You don’t have to assume stuff when it literally on the page and when it comes up in a lesson says if it is a suru verb or not.
Even in the reviews if you expand after answering it tells you if it is a suru verb or not.
I do agree with Noursaidana’s point though. It’s free vocab so i never actually got annoyed with it I was till now just always kinda happy that my number of lessons went down without me having to put time into learning something new
I completely agree, especially because when you learn the initial noun, WK tells you that it can also be used as a する verb in the “part of speech” section, so it feels really unnecessary. The only time it’s really useful is when the verb is a little different from the noun’s meaning.
One thing that I would argue in favor of separate items is that it would give a chance to make the transitivity clear. I’m not sure they really focus on that, but you can’t tell what the transitivity of a する verb will be just from looking at the noun.
For instance, 挑戦 (ちょうせん, challenge), which actually does not have its own dedicated する verb item, is intransitive in verb form. You say に挑戦する, not を挑戦する.
Of course, alternatively, you could just always make sure that the example sentence for the plain noun item makes the transitivity of the する verb form clear, but then that restricts what you can do with those sentences a bit.
I’m late te this thread, but I agree that these vocabs are redundant. It’s not like you would be unable to read a vocab it there was suru after it, it’s fairly intuitive.
I have never even thought about transitivity when it comes to suru verbs and I don’t think WK is even supposed to teach you any verb grammar. They are also not consistent with having a suru-vocab every time either. They could just stick the example sentence from the suru-vocab into the main word vocab and in my opinion that would be the same but more efficient.
Yes it’s “free” vocab but it would be even more free if, you know, it wasn’t there at all.
We get topics about how to tell verbs apart by transitivity all the time, precisely because WK does bake transitivity into the meanings. But when there isn’t a pair, it’s not as noticeable, because the English verb could be opposite in its transitivity.
Thinking about transitivity with your する verbs might be a good idea, BTW >_>
At least as good of an idea as thinking about transitivity with any other verb.
I think it would make WK’s experience better overall.
