I’ve seen a few topics regarding context sentences already but I feel like I have the exact opposite problem as everyone else. Some context sentences simply don’t contain any advanced Kanji, and it is actually making reading them more difficult.
Here an example:
Why is the rest of the sentence spelled out completely in Hiragana? I’d prefer if it just used Kanji as you normally would. Sometimes I find myself getting confused because I mistake hiragana-words for particles.
I already know WaniKani doesn’t like Furigana, and that’s probably (?) why it’s spelled out, but if you want my two cents, I prefer the Kanji
If there’s a way to get the Kanji back please let me know!
I think the reason for this, but I might be completely mistaken, is that for the context sentences to be readable, they shouldn’t use kanji above your current level.
That’s not always the case, though, and you’ll start seeing sentences full of kanji soon enough ;).
Unfortunately, no idea how to “bring dem kanji back”.
I encounter context sentences occasionally that use Kanji above my level, and ofc I can’t read them just yet. Maybe furigana on those unknown Kanji wouldn’t be too bad? Kinda reminds me of how Bunpro hides Furigana on known vocab if you link your WaniKani account.
I just find it difficult to read the context sentences when they’re all hiragana, it makes figuring out the grammar more cumbersome, but maybe that’s just me. I just saw a few threads complaining about the Kanji in the context sentences, but I find it better that way
I’m probably not the best person to respond (someone way better at this will definitely come along soon lol), but I’m gonna anyway because in the beginning I had the exact same issue! But it’s not an issue to Wanikani alone -
(I don’t know your reading level so this is from the perspective that you’re new to it)
When you start reading manga or short stories you’ll find people use kana instead of kanji or kanji instead of kana for a usually kana-only word. At first I found this annoying, but I’ve reasoned it’s usually related to speech bubble size in manga - no clue if there is some other reason outside of it.
This itself isn’t helpful, but as I read more I found it just started to make sense where a particle would be instead of vocabulary I didn’t know? It will eventually become more intuitive, I think!
Until you gain better intuition and more vocab, you could try installing Yomichan so you can check that something is not a particle in a sentence. I started to ignore the example sentences for a while but now that I installed that I’m reading them every time again.
It is kind of frustrating at first (and by that I mean for months+), but I think taking the time to read a sentence slowly and break it into parts will help your reading comprehension overall, because you will start to gain a better intuition for Japanese sentence context clues in breaking that sentence down. Like the work to understand a kana only sentence totally feels annoying in the moment, but I think it will help us in the long term!
The example sentences always use kanji above level, so that can’t be it. I don’t know enough about who wrote them to give you more info on why they are that way, though!
Unfortunately, that’s something you’d have to get used to when reading books, though . Books for young children literally abuse kana. So one not only has to know kana and kanji, but also be able to navigate between the two (three) easily via context and known vocabulary.
I definitely try and read the example sentences for every new word I learn. I’ll check out the extension and see if it helps me; maybe it can also help me understand Japanese texts I read outside of WaniKani.
I’ll also check out @Gorbit99 extension, thanks for the link ^^
Tbh, I would first of all recommend yomichan over the furigana extension. Having furigana will make you read the furigana. It won’t let you maybe remember words from other places or previous readings.
also my extension is quite buggy, but the previous point sounds better
Yeah I installed Yomichan because it also lets me scan the words where Wanikani spelled out Kanji with Hiragana, and it’ll help me better understand texts on other websites as well. It’s still a nice userscript tho
. Books for young children literally abuse kana. So one not only has to know kana and kanji, but also be able to navigate between the two (three) easily via context and known vocabulary.