I have noticed there is a huge problem with vocabulary items marking you wrong when you just give the wrong reading. Every other sub-category just gently gives you a prompt saying “we’re looking for the other reading” or whatever, but it seems like a WHOLE LOT (if not all) of the vocab words lack this functionality. This is incredibly frustrating, and I know there’s no way I’m the only person who is tired of this. I also feel like many vocabulary words lack the functionality of “we were looking for the meaning, not the reading,” and will just mark you wrong. I am getting tired of reporting these individually only for nothing to change at all, so maybe this will get something moving.
3 Likes
The reason nothing has changed is because there’s nothing to change. 月見 can only be read one way and that’s つきみ. げんみ and がんみ are both wrong. The reason kanji get the shaky screen is because they can be thought of more like letters. There are several different ways to read kanji, but almost all vocab have only one way to say them. There was an example posted here a while ago that I now cannot find, but the gist was:
The letter c can be pronounced “s” or “k”
WK: "How do you pronounce the letter c?
User: “S”
WK: “That is possible, but we’re looking for a different answer.”
User: “K”
WK: “Correct!”
The word cat is pronounced “kat” Saying “sat” is objectively wrong:
WK: “How do you pronounce the word cat?”
User: “Sat”
WK: “No, that’s wrong.”
You don’t get the shaky screen here because there is no instance where sat would ever be an acceptable reading.
As frustrating as this is, it may help to remember that languages are spoken before they’re written, so the word ひとり existed first, and was later assigned the kanji 一人.
34 Likes
That’s all well and good when the word is multiple kanji, but when I’m flying thru my reviews in the morning, and the word is just an individual kanji out of context, I’m rarely paying attention to the border color to know it’s looking for a vocab word 
3 Likes
If the word is a single kanji, wanikani does nudge you with “we’re looking for the vocab reading, not the kanji meaning”. If it’s a kanji + okurigana they don’t, but in that case you have more than just color to go by.
22 Likes
To be fair… It’s not some thin border. Half of the screen changes color and the prompt says “vocabulary…”. I feel like it’s reasonable to expect the user to know it’s a vocabulary item and assume that if they enter in the onyomi when it should be kunyomi that they actually just don’t know how to vocabulary word is read.
The only other suggestion I can offer is maybe a reorder script? I used one that separated radicals, Kanji, and vocab. Would make it easier to know what’s being expected with minimal thought
13 Likes
AFAIK, this functionality is there for every single entry, not just some of them. You most likely entered the wrong reading. If you enter the correct one, you get the shake and hint to enter meaning instead. It also works the other way, if you enter meaning when asked for reading.
4 Likes
hm they probably just doing reviews too fast, without thinking because they ¨know¨ that answer. the user should try writein down kanji/use a dictoatory, or find a podcast with that kanjij in it, so you can hear a native talk and say it how they would, ya know?
Hmm. “Nikkou” was specifically added to the block list for this word in February last year, which is kinda curious considering “Nikko” was added to the allow list in September the year before. I guess this might be because the city of Nikko is pretty much uniformly rendered as “Nikko” in English and they don’t want you to confuse them, but it still seems a little unusual to me.
3 Likes
So if I’m understanding right, the incorrect spelling is accepted as a reading, but the correct one isn’t? That doesn’t make any sort of sense.
Yeah, this seems like one of those “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” moments.
1 Like
That seems like an illogical decision given that the vocabulary card’s meaning is for the word of sunlight, and not for the city. The example sentences are all for the word too. The only time the city is mentioned is in the Mnemonic and that’s in addition to the primary meaning.
Nikkou should just give the “we’re looking for the meaning, not the reading” warning.
3 Likes
The standard English spelling is accepted as a meaning, while the direct transliteration is not. Don’t still be confusing readings with meanings - that’s what got us into this conversation in the first place.
Ideally yes, but I think with “Nikko” being on the allow list, the “close enough” detector is taking priority over the “that’s a reading instead” detector.
For a platform that is very unforgiving with spelling errors, it is baffling why this is the case. “Nikko” is objectively wrong and “Nikkou” is not.
Regardless, contrary to previous comments, this problem does exist with vocabulary, and this is only a solitary example that I happened to screenshot at the time. By making weird arbitrary exceptions like this, you create inconsistency which is anything but helpful for a studying platform.
Nikko is what’s used in English, and sometimes usage trumps objectivity. (Aside from which, it’s essentially Nikkō without the macron, 'cos macrons are kinda annoying to type.)
This “problem” exists with a handful of specific vocabulary items for various quirky reasons, one of which just so happens to be this specific word. Most of the rest of them are also proper nouns, for which the reading is the meaning. Aside from those, 99% of the time you’re gonna get the “we wanted the meaning not the reading” shake.
You’re not gonna convince me it’s a widespread issue by cherry-picking items, especially items for which I can show you why the reading-as-meaning shake is being suppressed.
1 Like
But if you type “Nikko” when it’s looking for the reading, is it marked wrong? Of course it is, because the reading is にっこう not にっこ。I am still not even vaguely convinced that “Nikko” should get the shake and “nikkou” should be marked wrong.
I’ve reported multiple problems similar to this one, and if I had a list of them, I’d post them here as well. I only made this post to begin with because it was a problem that I ran into enough times that it felt like it deserved a thread. 99% is WILDLY optimistic -and I’d venture to guess- probably inaccurate.
Literally the entire purpose of the shake is to give people a break when they accidentally type the reading instead of the meaning. Why would anyone at all be spelling it “nikko” unless they were just spelling it wrong?
Aye, but にっこう for the reading is objectively wrong. “Nikko” for the meaning is not, because English.
Well, if you’ve reported them, the WaniKani gang will take care of it. Not much we can do here. 
I dunno, WaniKani has over six and a half thousand vocab items. One percent of them is 66 cards (and two-thirds). 66 is definitely a big enough number to make one go “whoa, there’s so many things tripping me up here”.
But yeah, it could be. Ultimately that’s just a number I made up. 72% of statistics are made up.
Nikko’s own website spells it “Nikko”, so who are we to judge?
1 Like
I don’t understand how to make this any clearer than I already have…
What keys do you push on an english keyboard when you type the spelling for 日光？
n-i-k-k-o-u
What keys will EVERYONE be pushing on an english keyboard when inputting the reading for that vocab word?
n-i-k-k-o-u
This is not about romanization. I am not on wanikani to learn how to romanize japanese words. I’m here to learn japanese words. There is an う at the end of the word. The onyomi reading of 光 is “kou”. This would be marked wrong on any other item on this platform. This one arbitrary exception in favor of a western spelling is a bad decision, and will only serve to confuse.
Indeed it is not. It’s about what the word means, and when we’re talking about the city of Nikko, it means Nikko.
But mostly it’s about actually paying attention to when WaniKani is asking for the reading, and when it’s asking for the meaning. If you’d just written “sunlight” like WaniKani was expecting, we wouldn’t even be here.
1 Like