Some transitive verbs require “something” in the answer to distinguish from the intransitive version, for example, 燃やす is “to burn something” vs 燃える is “to burn.”
Sometimes Wanikani marks my answer wrong for adding “something” to the transitive verb, such as “降ろす” giving a wrong answer for “to take something down,” instead requiring “to take down.”
Any tips for how to format my answers so Wanikani will accept them? I would also accept an undo button, but I know we’re irresponsible children and can’t be trusted with such power.
I’m also a little annoyed by this inconsistency in Wanikani sometimes. I’m not too sure when the something is needed and when not. Maybe it depends on when the vocabulary was last touched by the content team?
If I hit one of these during review and think the meaning doesn’t change with “something” added, I typically add a user synonym, so the next time in review I won’t be marked wrong .
Maybe somebody else has some better insight here?
EDIT: btw, I think from a grammar standpoint, it’s “to take something down” instead of “to take down something”. Maybe that’s the reason it’s not included in that vocabulary?
Thanks! I don’t understand the nuances of English well enough to know the difference between “to take down something” and “to take something down.” Maybe it’s just some hacky code that ignores “something” at the end of certain transitive answers, but if you don’t put it at the end, it marks it wrong.
I seem to have pretty good results just not including “something”. It might have something to do with whether the English word is transitive or not. Like 上げる, “to lift” and “to raise” seem to be fine, but “to rise” would be wrong because it is not transitive.
Other ones I can think of that I leave “something” off: 出す、入れる、下げる、止める. Maybe it’s just that “remove”, “insert”, “lower”, and “stop” are all transitive.
I’m only guessing here, so I might be wrong: Maybe “something” is only required if it’s needed to differentiate a transitive verb from its intransitive counterpart, like in your example, “to burn something” vs. “to burn”? Another example could be “to grow something” vs. “to grow”.
The verb “to take down”, on the other hand, doesn’t exist in an intransitive form, so it’s not necessary to add “something” in the answer. Although it isn’t wrong, so it’s a bit strange that Wanikani doesn’t accept it.
For background - our accepted meanings are always manually added by the team. We do have a built in typo detector, but that only works for a few letters being mixed up or omitted. To the typo checker, “to take something down” and “to take down something” are fundamentally different inputs, even if they convey the same basic idea in English. You’re welcome to add these alternatives to your user synonym list or write in to us so we can add it to the accepted list for the future.
On transitive verbs in general, many items accept the translation without the “something” because we put those phrases on the allow list. For example, 持つ accepts to hold, but we teach it as to hold something to make clear that it’s a transitive verb.
Okay. I added synonyms, so that fixes the problem for me. I’ll try omitting “something” from all my answers. But I have in general appreciated the extra validation as to whether it’s transitive or intransitive by not giving vague answers.
I know you said “many items,” but it would be really nice if the optional “something” were consistently applied. It is really difficult without consistent wording. Here’s an example of where “something” is required:
It does seem weird to me that “to hold” would typically be interpreted as transitive yet wk feels the need to add the something. Similarly “to put on” or “to place on” is clearly transitive on its own, yet the something is needed.
Im all for distinguishing transitive and intransitive, but I feel like in many cases that’s already achieved without the “something”.
Yeah, I think that’s a fair point! Feedback like yours helps us when we think about it, too. If you ever have any future ideas or examples, feel free to send them our way or post them here.
.
