Thursday April 17 2025 Content Updates

WaniKani Content Updates
1

Kanji

女 (1) - Added じお to the warning list, updated the reading explanation.

上 (1) - Added じおう to the warning list, updated the reading explanation.

山 (1) - Updated the reading explanation.

口 (1) - Updated the reading explanation.

九 (1) - Updated the reading explanation.

一 (1) - Updated the reading explanation.

力 (1) - Updated the reading explanation.

三 (1) - Updated the reading explanation.

人 (1) - Updated the reading explanation.

二 (1) - Updated the reading explanation.

子 (2) - Updated the reading mnemonic and hint.

病 (10) - Added へい as an alternative reading.

整 (13) - Updated the meaning mnemonic and hint, and updated the reading mnemonic and hint.

橋 (13) - Updated the meaning mnemonic and hint, and updated the reading mnemonic and hint.

脳 (18) - Added 胸 (18) to visually similar kanji list.

敵 (21) - Added “rival,” “competitor,” “opponent,” “foe,” and “adversary” to the allow list.

現 (23) - Added 理 (7) to visually similar kanji list.

股 (33) - Moved “thigh” to the warning list.

奴 (34) - Added 双 (42) to the similar kanji list.

酔 (35) - Updated the meaning mnemonic, and updated the reading mnemonic and hint.

闘 (37) - Moved “struggle” to the allow list, moved “fight” to be the new primary meaning, updated meaning mnemonic and hint, and updated reading mnemonic and hint.

溝 (45) - Added “ditch,” “drain,” “drainage,” “gap,” “drainage ditch,” “trench,” “small trench,” “groove,” and “gap” to the allow list.

錬 (46) - Updated the meaning hint, and updated the reading mnemonic and hint.

衡 (57) - Updated the reading mnemonic and hint.

罷 (60) - Updated the meaning explanation.

Vocabulary

女子 (2) - Added じおし to the warning list.

女王 (2) - Added じおおう to the warning list.

王女 (2) - Added おうじお to the warning list.

上手 (2) - Added じおうず to the warning list.

小さい (2) - Updated the reading explanation.

用いる (3) - Added “utilise” to the warning list.

お母さん (3) - Updated a common word combination translation.

気 (4) - Updated a common word combination translation.

元気 (4) - Updated a common word combination translation.

男 (4) - Updated a common word combination translation.

生きる (4) - Added “to like” to the block list.

四千 (4) - Added “4 000” to the allow list.

同じ (5) - Updated a common word combination translation.

絵 (8) - Updated a common word combination translation.

引き算 (10) - Updated the meaning explanation.

終点 (10) - Updated one context sentence translation.

乗せる (10) - Added “to take a ride” to the block list.

教わる (10) - Added “to teach something to someone” to the block list.

根本 (12) - Moved ねもと to the warning list, moved “source” and “origin” to the allow list, added “basis” as an alternative meaning, added “the root,” “root cause,” “root problem,” and “fundamental basis” to the allow list, added “fundamental” to the warning list, added “basics” to the block list, updated the meaning explanation, and updated the reading explanation.

聞こえる (12) - Moved “hearable” and “audible” to the warning list, moved “to be heard” and “can hear” to the allow list, added “to be hearable” as the primary meaning, added “able to hear” to the allow list, added “to hear” to the warning list, and updated the meaning explanation.

性病 (14) - Updated a common word combination translation.

非常 (17) - Updated a common word combination translation.

得 (19) - Updated a common word combination translation.

果たして (19) - Updated one context sentence translation.

敵 (21) - Added “opponent” as an alternative meaning, added “rival,” “competitor,” “foe,” and “adversary” to the allow list, updated the meaning explanation, and updated the reading explanation.

大敵 (21) - Added たいかたき reading to the warning list, moved “rival” and “enemy” to the allow list, added “great enemy” and “formidable adversary” as alternative meanings, added “adversary,” “greatest enemy,” “formidable foe,” “opponent,” “strong opponent,” “powerful opponent,” and “dangerous opponent” to the allow list, updated the meaning explanation, and updated the reading explanation.

際 (21) - Updated the reading explanation.

有職 (23) - Moved “employed” to the allow list, added “having a job” as the primary meaning, added “being employed” as an alternative meaning, added “employment” and “having employment” to the allow list, added “have a job,” “be employed,” and “have employment” to the warning list, updated the meaning explanation, and updated one context sentence translation.

構成 (25) - Added “completion” to the block list.

利益 (28) - Added “benefit” as an alternative meaning, added “interests,” “gain,” “financial gain,” “advantage,” and “yield” to the allow list, and updated the meaning explanation.

総理大臣 (30) - Updated the reading explanation.

総理 (30) - Updated the reading explanation.

既存 (31) - Updated one context sentence translation.

灰皿 (33) - Added “smoking stand” to the allow list, added “smoking station” to the warning list, and updated the reading explanation.

股 (34) - Moved もも to the warning list, moved “thigh” to the warning list, updated the meaning explanation, and updated the reading explanation.

戦闘 (37) - Added “battling,” “combat,” “fight,” “combatting,” and “fighting” to the allow list, added “action” to the warning list, and updated the meaning explanation.

闘う (37) - Moved “to fight” to be the primary meaning, moved “to struggle” to be an alternative meaning, added “to struggle with,” “to struggle against,” “to contend,” “to resist,” and “to combat” to the allow list, and updated the meaning explanation.

闘志 (37) - Updated the meaning explanation.

溝 (45) - Moved “drain” to the allow list, added “drainage,” “gap,” “drainage ditch,” “trench,” “small trench,” “groove,” and “gap” to the allow list, updated the meaning explanation, and updated the reading explanation.

瞳 (46) - Updated the reading explanation.

椅子 (46) - Updated the reading explanation.

扇子 (47) - Updated the reading explanation.

扉 (47) - Updated the reading explanation.

悔しい (48) - Moved “annoying” to the allow list, added “frustrating” and “disappointing” as alternative meanings, added “bitter” to the allow list, and updated the meaning explanation.

疾病 (54) - Updated the reading explanation.

敢闘 (57) - Moved “fight bravely” to the allow list, added “fighting bravely” as the primary meaning, added “fight courageously,” “fighting courageously,” and “brave fight” to the allow list, and updated the meaning explanation.

憂き目 (59) - Updated the meaning explanation, and updated the reading explanation.

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2

could you stop changing the primary meanings?

Altering or “reassigning” the meanings of words during vocabulary acquisition disrupts the mental organization and retrieval of those words, leading to memory interference, entrenched errors, and communication breakdowns. Cognitively, when learners attach incorrect senses to new lexical items, they create conflicting memory traces that impair both recall and integration into a coherent semantic network (proactive and retroactive interference). Over time, these mislearned associations can fossilize, making corrective feedback less effective.

1. Cognitive Interference and Memory Confusion

When learners change a word’s meaning, they form competing memory traces.

  • Proactive interference occurs when old (incorrect) associations block the retrieval of correct ones. Underwood (1965) demonstrated that previously learned material can inhibit the recall of subsequently learned material if they share similarities .
  • Retroactive interference arises when newly learned (incorrect) meanings overwrite or degrade earlier correct ones, leading to unstable retention.

Both types of interference severely undermine long‐term retention and fluent retrieval of accurate vocabulary.

2. Semantic Network Errors

Words in the brain are organized in networks based on meaning and associations. Misassigning meanings causes words to hook into the wrong part of the network.

  • Research on contextual interference shows that embedding vocabulary in incorrect semantic contexts makes learning harder to generalize and transfer to new situations.
  • Cross‑linguistic interference further compounds this when learners import incorrect senses from their first language, leading to semantic confusion and slower acquisition of nuanced L2 senses.

As a result, each lookup or retrieval attempt triggers competing paths, slowing down comprehension and production.

3. Fossilization of Errors

Once incorrect mappings are repeatedly used, they become entrenched and resistant to correction—a process known as fossilization.

Conclusion

Altering word meanings during learning disrupts cognitive architecture, entrenches errors, and hampers communication—effects that are particularly pronounced in Japanese due to its dense homophony, kanji complexity, and nuanced honorific system. To maximize learning efficiency and communicative accuracy, learners should adhere strictly to authoritative definitions and use targeted practice (e.g., spaced repetition with context sentences) to reinforce correct associations from the outset.

Yeah it’s freaking ChatGPT but if a dumb model can get it why can’t you?

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I guess I’m being inflammatory here but why did you think getting an LLM to spit a bunch of jargon out would make for a compelling argument. I bet I could do the same thing for a counterargument and neither of us would be at all sure what either of us is trying to say. ChatGPT doesn’t care about this, you care about this. Tell me why you care about this.

Also, just to be clear only 1 kanji and 4 vocab items on this list here include a change to the primary meaning, and all of them just moved the primary meaning to the allow list. Meaning you can still input the same answers and get all of them right. Personally, these mostly seem pretty reasonable, but idk maybe I’m out of my depth.

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I know it’s possible to “hack” a model into saying what you want—but if you can get it to argue that changing perfectly good translations to lesser-known nuances while we’re actively learning is somehow good for us, and even cite sources for that, then honestly, OpenAI doesn’t deserve all that funding.

So why do I care?
Because I’ve invested a tremendous amount of time and energy into learning Japanese. The backbone of that effort is WaniKani. As clearly stated in their knowledge guide, the system is simple:

  • Do your available lessons.
  • Do your reviews.
  • Do them every day, without fail. Probably even on Christmas.

What it doesn’t say is: “Do your lesson, then one day someone decides that 妙 doesn’t mean ‘strange’ anymore—it means peculiar,” and you only find out during a review. And suddenly, you start second-guessing your entire decision to rely on WaniKani. Because if they’re willing to change perfectly solid translations, what’s going to happen with the more approximate ones?

I don’t know about you, but I have a photographic memory—I associate kanji directly with words. If the word changes, that connection breaks. It’s not just one kanji and four vocab items. They changed a lot in a short amount of time. And in some cases, it’s either useless (“Moved ‘employed’ to the allow list, added ‘having a job’ as the primary meaning”… come on), or just plain wrong (妙). I’m not here to learn Wanikani. I’m here to learn Japanese.

If there are actual errors in the translations, fine—make a comprehensive list of them and change them all at once. But don’t mess with our learning process piecemeal just to justify your job. There are far more impactful improvements to make—like adding example sentences and real usage.

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Could you explain what is wrong with “basics” as a meaning of 根本?

This does not fly when you have this exact meaning in your examples:

根本に立ち返る
to return to the basics
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I do agree with this, but also many different ways of learning words and association come directly from users asking for things to be changed to allow this word . There are compromises in some places, but I also saw the explanation for the 妙 change in a different thread

It was actually a response to your original query about this exact word, but at least the words strange and odd on the allow list so it shouldn’t disrupt that specific word too much?

I’ll say I want the wanikani team to make their changes with everyone in mind and while it sometimes makes me drop a master to apprentice, I don’t want them to never change something if they work out as a team with natives that the definition should be altered a bit

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Good catch - I think that may have been an oversight on our part, let me check.

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" We also felt", “at least to me”, “splitting hairs like this”
How is that ok?
What don’t you (and I don’t mean you specifically) understand about photographic memory? It’s extremely disruptive.
Leave the primary meanings alone unless there’s an actual mistake.

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Hi there - we updated the collocation to make this more clear!

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With the caveat that my flavor of non-typical brain is not eidetic so I can’t completely relate, it sounds like you’re blurring the distinction between your one-to-one learning type (i.e., this image = this English word) and the fact that different languages are not just different ways to say a universal set of discrete linguistic tokens. For some things, that may be true - 837 for example, is pretty clearly going to be an exact like for like translation. But the example here, “having a job” vs. “being employed” is more of an abstract condition and there may be some additional subtext that makes one translation generally more appropriate, or it may simply be that they feel it makes it easier to remember for the majority of users. (I’m not to that word yet, but it looks like the kanji are “have” and “employment” so my 下手 guess would be that “having employment” would be a great primary reading). I can definitely see why they would want to move “employed” out of the primary definition, though - because it can be used as well for things like “The team employed the offside trap to great effect”.

I empathize that the decision makes it more difficult for you personally, but I’m not sure I can understand the argument that you don’t want to learn WaniKani, you want to learn Japanese. Well, I understand that goal - but if you’re expecting for a pattern of kanji and other kana to always mean one literal English word/phrase, rather than a concept, that’s not really learning Japanese either.

Anyway, I’ve gone on about this long enough. I hope you reach your goals here and with any other tools you’re using in the end!

4 Likes