The vocabulary word 実

Wanikani gives the meaning of 実 as “truth” and the pronunciation as “じつ”.

However, 実 also is a common word meaning seed, fruit, or nut with a reading of ”み.”

Frustrating to keep missing this when I am entering a correct meaning and reading.

4 Likes

They don’t really have a good system for when a single word has multiple meanings with entirely different readings. The same thing happens with 際, which can be きわ or さい. There are more as well. They are aware of the issue, but haven’t developed a good solution… well, that’s what they’ve said in the past. Your best bet is to use the override script or something for these kinds of issues.

9 Likes

With stuff like this, I don’t see why they can’t list it with the other. They already do this with 一日、listing both いちにち and ついたち as readings when the latter never means “one day”. They should just add them; ultimately it’s our responsibility to then know which meaning/reading in a given context, and knowing more can only be beneficial imo…

1 Like

With 一日, the meaning associatwd with the different meanings is largely the same, whereas with your example, you could run the risk of associating a reading with a wrong meaning

2 Likes

They can order the meanings and readings respectively of one another and then indicate that in the box below, where they already explain the meaning and reading. This is still preferable to pretending these meanings and readings don’t exist, for me.

I think the problem is in answering… usually an accepted reading or meaning means that they are equivalent. If you answer fruit for the meaning and じつ for the reading, you’ve just mixed them up, so how would they handle that.

7 Likes

I don’t really see why they need to handle that. If the user mixes up the meaning and the reading it’s their own problem? Anyone can check the items upon reviewing if they can’t remember which reading corresponds to which meaning, but surely this is an equivalent problem to real life? I mean someone could enter “one day” in my above example and then type the reading ついたち without the world splitting in half. At the end of the day, the integrity of the information we retain is our own responsibility. I didn’t even know this other use of 実 existed, but surely I would have learned it here except for this?

It’s probably not a big issue for me either way, but it would have been nice to have learned this other common (?) use of this word, and I saw someone complaining about more or less the same thing regarding 際 quite recently as well. I don’t know. :woman_shrugging:

1 Like

Well, it’s easy for you to say that, but WK has to make a decision one way or the other. If you don’t think allowing mixed answers like that wouldn’t provoke complaint topics too, then I disagree.

5 Likes

I have to say I agree with @Leebo on this. I prefer the way it is, where I’m forced to learn additional meanings/readings outside of WK rather than being able to mix meanings/readings when I’m reviewing what I learned here.

In my opinion, it’s easier/better to learn a different meaning/reading of a word (that WK doesn’t teach) ‘in the wild’ where you can at least have some context to help solidify the new info. Being able to mix meaning/reading while reviewing items that I only know via SRS just seems like a set up for failure. I don’t like the “it’s my own problem” mentality here because for the items that WK does teach, I count on them to teach it to me correctly.

Sure, there are additional meanings/readings of a lot of kanji and/or words that WK already teaches. But at least what it does teach is still accurate, albeit lacking in some areas. At least いちにち and ついたち can share a meaning, whereas じつ and み in your example, do not. They only share the kanji.

Edit to add : I do agree that learning the meaning and reading for 実 that you mentioned as well would be ideal. But WK would need to find a way to distinguish between the two, and I can’t think of a simple solution for that.

5 Likes

Yup, I don’t see this as a problem. WK is about learning the most common reading and meaning. I think they said so themselves somewhere. Learning more than one, for absolute beginners at least, is just going to confuse them. I think people expect WK to be an all-encompassing learning tool which it isn’t. It’s only there to get you to be able to read on your own, so that you can then learn from reading Japanese text. It’s all about quantity over quality and those sweet sweet +1s.

And if you still disagree with all that, you can simply use a script.

Maybe I’m just overconfident in my ability to differentiate them accurately over time in a context free environment like wk. I’m no expert in language teaching so I don’t know, I was just a little bummed because I have not heard of this alternate use of 実 at all. If I thought wk was bad as it is, i wouldn’t have bought lifetime.

I definitely don’t think people would not complain if it were the other way though, people seem to find complaint in pretty much every facet of anything haha. Hell, I’m complaining right now. But yeah it’s not a deal breaker or anything, I was just a tiny bit peeved. Guess I’ll add it to my anki vocab deck.

1 Like

Ah, yes, I think this is the line we are drawing. WK is geared toward beginners, which is why I mentioned my “set up for failure” comment above. If everyone here were already experienced in the language, it probably wouldn’t be as big a big deal. But for many, myself included, WK is the first kanji learning tool being utilized in one’s Japanese studies. So having potentially confusing material wouldn’t be wise.

Of course we can’t learn everything here and do need to do outside research pretty regularly to gain any real understanding of the language overall. That’s fine and I feel it should be that way. But if the tool allows you to learn something that’s just straight up wrong, that’s kind of unfair to the user and I can’t justify that as “their own problem”. Outside research should be a supplement of WK to learn material that it doesn’t teach, not a requirement to learn the material that’s already provided.

2 Likes

This is also my first kanji learning tool, and I did stipulate that the alternate meaning and reading should be described in the paragraph when they teach the information in the lessons and which are viewable on reviews. It’s not like they can’t literally write “the meaning ‘truth’ can only be read using the じつ reading, and the meaning ‘seed’ can only be read using the み reading; they aren’t interchangeable” or something to that effect. You’re acting like I was suggesting they just throw the different readings and meanings up there and let people figure it out.

I get it, message received, it’s an unpopular opinion, I’ll go back to lurking.

What I’m doing on the Core 10k is making them into 2 different cards (or items) and adding little tips right next to the text “Vocabulary (Meaning/Reading)”. So for example:

“Vocabulary Meaning - Food”

This way I know it’s not asking me for the “truth” meaning, as it’s not food (but the fruit).

The trick is giving tips to exclude 1 of the meanings, without giving too much of the actual answer away. Does this give away the actual answer? Not really. It’s like a mnemonic.

It might not seem design friendly or easy to implement, but whatever. I do think they shouldn’t mention multiple readings when they mean different things though. Any more than that is unecessary. But that’s how I deal with this situation when learning vocab on Kitsun.

4 Likes

Sure, they could certainly put that. But how do you suggest they handle it in the reviews?

If 実 pops up in my queue and I type “truth” as the meaning and “み” as the reading, that’s incorrect.

I didn’t imply that at all. My concern is, as just mentioned, how it would be handled during review sessions.

I apologize if I upset you(?). I wasn’t saying “@lollipophuho, that’s a stupid idea!”. My intention is to discuss the topic with good points and good counterpoints in hopes of finding a good solution that WK may one day be able to implement. I hope you’d continue to post, as that’s how feedback is given and considered.

2 Likes

When I saw you replying, I knew you were going to say that. :stuck_out_tongue:

Yeah, that’s where we get stuck. :frowning:

1 Like

I find the key to everything. Next on the list is your kokoro :durtle_love:

1 Like

WaniKani has two different meanings and readings for 称える and it’s quite annoying. There’s not even an explanation if I remember correctly.

4 Likes

Ohh, interesting! the plot thickens

It appears I don’t learn that word until level 40 even though I’ve already learned the kanji for it here in level 38. :thinking: Anyway…

There doesn’t appear to be. Jisho doesn’t help and I can’t find anything on stack exchange about it, either. Can anyone help clarify? @Leebo? @jprspereira? Maybe even @TofuguKanae?

1 Like

I asked this last March :stuck_out_tongue:

Basically, たたえる means to praise (a more formal/literary version of 褒める - i.e. just use 褒める).

となえる is more going by the name of something/pretending to be something:

JPと称える人。
A person that goes by the name of JP.

病気を称える。
To pretend to be sick.

But hey, I never really saw となえる (称える) being used through reading, so maybe Kanae or someone else can clear things up.

1 Like