I’d suggest to install Houhou http://houhou-srs.com/
It gives definition, the rarity (or not) of the word and other words related… It also indicates the wanikani level and it’s a free SRS.
For exemple:
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Yeah honestly WK is kinda ass when it comes to actual meaning, but as I’ve been told by simps a few times, WK is only providing vocabulary so you learn how to read kanji, and not to teach you the vocabulary.
Or something along those lines.
This looks like a great program. Unfortunately it is only available for Windows.
Other than the condescending tone, this is pretty accurate. Wanikani is focused on giving you enough Kanji knowledge to be able to read Kanji. The nuance you pick up as you read.
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It’s the fetid ones ya gotta watch out for 
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I absolutely think that small usage notes like “often used by older generation” or “seldom used in casual speech” are within the scope of wanikani. I mean, I’m still on the free levels but I don’t know the differences between 女子、女の子、and 少女. They’re all just “girl”. I know that I’ll figure out the common usage through context and immersing in the language more, but I’d feel safer if I knew that I was learning things correctly from the start, you know? Otherwise I feel a bit hesitant laying down strong memory pathways for the risk of having to correct them later.
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I think that idea is an awesome QOL fix! Maybe it could be built off of the user-added synonyms, allowing the top 10 (or so) most commonly added synonyms to be given a “close but no dice” shake instead of a direct fail. i would love to see this get considered for implementation.
You would need more than a generic tag like the ones you mentioned to differentiate the girl vocab items.
Here are two monolingual thesaurus entries for the “girl” words. Full of explanations, comparisons, and usage scenarios.
So, at the very least I think you’re proposing something in between a tag system and a full-blown thesaurus, but again, I’m not sure WaniKani wants to add that to their list of things to do for 6000 vocab items.
As an aside, I made a (now closed due to age) thread on those words.
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Thank you for this resource! I’m gonna read through now and hopefully figure it out lol.
I think I am imagining an “editor’s notes” or usage notes type of section, although I can see how that would quickly stack up and how it would be hard to draw a line where enough information lies.
I think the best thing to do with synonyms or would-be synonyms is to look up the difference and add a note of the differences in the notes box yourself.
Not only do you get used to using things like the Goo dictionary @Leebo posted a couple of posts ago but the very act of doing active research helps your recall.
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I think if you read and listen to enough Japanese and you practise it as much as possible, eventually the different nuances of similar words will become apparent through exposuse and usage. There’s so much that you learn through input and practice rather than apps or textbooks.
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I’m a bit surprised some people think WK doesn’t teach vocab. I mean, I don’t think learning vocab through WK is all that different from how I learnt words using Anki-decks a few years ago, or how I learnt German and English vocab in school. Sure, there may be services or ways of learning vocab that, with every word, teaches every possible meaning and nuance… but learning vocab that way sounds extremely tedious and slow. I’d rather just learn words like with WK, and then pick up on nuances later on.
With that said, a possible “solution” to those who want the elaborate descriptions of each word, would be to include links to detailed explanations in all vocab descriptions. Although I haven’t started out yet, I think Bunpro does something like that but with grammar? Links to several resources explaining something in various ways/levels of depth?
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I feel the same way. A lot of people have echoed similar sentiments above but, I think WK definitely works best as one of many language learning tools and isn’t really suited to being a standalone. I have found that I learn a lot of vocabulary from wanikani, however I don’t try to use them in my everyday Japanese until I have encountered them in another setting (which will usually give me an indication of their nuance or common use). There’s a lot of really book only or very specific use vocabulary in WK. Finding ones you can use is really rewarding, but I think it comes out the other side rather than them being words you can use right from the jump. I think you just have to trust that all those reviews are giving you a good foundation of a word that you can use later on when you have built upon that foundation elsewhere.
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