Does anyone know if there is a script that makes you enter each kanji pronunciation or vocab pronunciation for reviews that have multiple pronunciations? I looked through the script masterlist, but I might have missed it.
And for the more advanced Japanese speakers, when you’re reading in Japanese and you come across a sentence with a vocab word that has multiple pronunciations, are you able to interpret which pronunciation to use with context clues? I have the rikaikun extension which shows multiple pronunciations, but without the furigana, it’s still difficult for me to know which pronunciation to use.
What are some examples of words where you saw multiple pronunciations but weren’t sure? In the vast majority of cases, yes, there is one pronunciation that should be what the author intended and nearly all natives will presume. Exceptions exist, of course.
And yes, you should be able to use context to determine which is right.
Off the top of my head, there are a few categories of these kinds of things
-The meaning of each reading is the same, but the level of formality is different (明日: あした casual, everyday, あす slightly formal, みょうにち most formal)
-The meaning of each reading is the same, but one reading is modern and others are archaic (先生: せんせい, せんじょう)
-The meaning of each reading is similar, but reading differs based on the context (避ける avoid: よける for physical objects, さける for situations)
-The meaning of each reading is totally different, so it differs based on context (額: ひたい forehead, がく picture frame / sum)
Maybe there are other types as well. I’ll keep thinking on it.
As for whether a script is important for covering these… I would say in a lot of cases, no. For categories 3 and 4, you’re probably best off with separate entries anyway. With category 2, there’s no reason to know the archaic reading for a beginner. Category 1 is more reasonable to test yourself on, but it’s also not really critical. You’ll get the other readings through exposure.
Thank you for the informative response! I’m having more trouble with what could be considered category 2, although not with that particular word. This is not the best example, but take “一日.” Most of the time it’s pronounced as “いちにち,” except when the meaning is “first day” and then the pronunciation changes to “ついたち.” There would be context clues based off the sentence to hint at whether it means “first day” or “one day,” but if I hadn’t know there were multiple pronunciations, would there be context clues to suggest that? If I come across a better example while studying, I’ll post it here.
Also, there’s a 5th category I’m having issues with. For example, if I were to read 大切 or 大きい without having studied those words before, I would be able to assume fairly confidently that the “大” in 大切 is pronounced as “たい” or “だい” and the “大” in 大きい is pronounced as “おお.” But for words like 大切 versus 大学, would there be context clues to hint towards the correct way to pronounce “大” in that senario? Or is this a situation where I would have to look it up in a dictionary or already know the correct pronunciation?
Broadly speaking, you need to know how words are pronounced (which you learn along with learning what they mean). The readings of the individual kanji can often provide a helpful hint if you forgot the reading or haven’t seen the word before and are trying to look it up in the dictionary, but they’re not infallible (rendaku will often trip you up, for example). This is why WK teaches vocabulary (which are most of the items), not only kanji readings.
On ついたち and いちにち, I would look at it the other way around. You need to know how to say “first of the month” – it’s ついたち – and how to say “one day” – it’s いちにち. Then it happens that they’re both written the same way, as 一日. There’s no context clue that they share a written form, in the same way that in English there’s no context clue that present tense “read” and past tense “read” share a written form. It’s just something you have to know about those two words. In a situation where the reading was genuinely ambiguous and the author was feeling generous, they might clarify with furigana; but for this particular pair I can’t offhand think of a scenario where it would be ambiguous, and furigana for clarification is far from mandatory. More often the author just assumes you’ll make the right call.
(Personally I would learn the counting numbers separately from WK, as I think it works better to learn them as a sequence, not as a pile of individual words. Then you can reinforce that with WK.)
I figured that might be the case and I need to focus more on listening and reading to learn the vocab instead of trying to predict the pronunciation. Thanks!