Useless Meanings

The primary aim of WK is to teach you how to read kanji. They do teach enough about the meanings so that you’re not in the dark completely, but teaching each word in a nuanced way would be an enormous endeavor that is outside of the scope Koichi envisions for the site.

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Then why drill on the meanings at all? Why even expect an understanding of the meaning of the vocabulary if it doesn’t matter? Either do it reasonably or don’t do it at all, come on.

And I don’t agree that it has to be complex. Literally the effort put into bad mnemonics could have just been put into the right meanings, and synonyms. Synonyms is NOT hard

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If you pay attention to the screen shot, I have two dictionary tabs up. Doesn’t address the problem

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Wanikani offers mnemonics as their main method, they aren’t always the best, and I agree that these particular examples aren’t very useful, that doesn’t mean that mnemonics aren’t useful at all. If you don’t like their mnemonics, or would like to try a different method, feel free to ignore them, make your own or look/ask for different ones, or look for other resources, but I think WK is very clear in what they offer and why they recommend this method, and asking them to take a whole different approach isn’t reasonable, it might just mean that WK isn’t made for you.

There’s so much you can get from a kanji learning resource. If they did this, it would take the focus off of kanji, given the large amount of contextual cues they would have to provide explanatin for. A lot of times it’s not really a distinction but a nuance.

Use synonyms.

Sounds like something that could be done with a script. Have you checked if there’s one available that does this? If there isn’t one maybe you could ask kindly for it, see if it peeks someone’s interest, I know that there’s a thread for asking for scripts so you could start there.

No, that’s not how synonyms work.

I take it you haven’t been studying Japanese very long?

The term synonym in regards to studying Japanese usually refers to when two Japanese words are interchangeable, and it really, REALLY helps when it comes to understanding the actual meaning of a Japanese word.

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Sure, pal.

Check this thread. I think you might like this resource.

Certainly WK has issues when it comes to vocab meanings. They aren’t perfect and they’re constantly changing the meanings, but you should remember that the main focus is the kanji. When learning vocab, you should be consulting resources outside of WK as well as in reading.

I don’t know which mnemonics you’re referring to specifically as “goofy mnemonics thought up by a 12 year old”, and I also don’t see the relation it has to not understanding the distinction between two words, but again, WK isn’t primarily a vocab resource. You can’t get fluent in reading Japanese just from using WK and WK knows that, which is why WK isn’t marketed as an all in one resource. It literally takes less than 30 seconds to open up a dictionary site and to search the two similar words and compare.

And as other people have pointed out, user synonyms are a wonderful thing that many of us would be lost without.

This is just an aside, but

There’s no need to be condescending on here. Misunderstandings happen, and while there is a lot of heat on here, it’d be nice if people could avoid setting the place alight. That really goes to anyone though, not just you.

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This doesn’t address the problem. It’s another way one could make up for what WK lacks, where it doesn’t have to.

Mnemonics are the site’s way of memorizing Kanji, and Vocab is used to reinforce the meanings and uses of the Kanji, yeah? So why use mnemonics to explain the meaning, instead of… I don’t know, explaining the actual meaning? I’m not saying rework the way the whole site works, I’m saying it makes no sense to use bad, weak connections between kanji meanings to create a mnemonic that doesn’t work INSTEAD of just explaining what it means and why it means it- literally a sentence or two, just like it already is. That’s not even hard.

In the pictures I used for reference it’s clear why I would get the vocab word wrong, because the association between the kanji used has overlap with other vocab words using similar kanji and having related meanings, but the descriptions of both do nothing to help one actually understand the use of the kanji to MAKE the meanings that they do.

Dictionaries give English equivalents, and they’re usually the same meanings WK gives anyways. The actual discerning of a word and why the kanji that makes it up makes it different from something else is not what you get out of a dictionary. Trust me, I have Goo and Jisho open every time I’m using WK.

This was in response to

Which felt condescending in itself, considering I speak English and have been studying long enough to be at lvl 23. Unless of course this person really didn’t know what I meant by synonym in this context, to which I reason “Maybe this person hasn’t been studying long enough to know what I mean.” My response was not condescending, it was honest curiosity.

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This is where reading comes in. It’s important to see the words in context in order to understand the nuances of them. Also, depending on your level, you should check out Weblio if you want a slightly more native definition.

I assumed that was the case. Also, formatting a question like that is often done to be condescending, particularly online. Regardless of your intentions, it could easily be interpreted that way. If you just didn’t think it would be, then that’s fine.

I mean, yes, the nature of learning language is reading, listening and using it to figure out the different nuances. I know it’s a more complex process then just a couple sentences describing the difference- but I’m not talking about perfect understanding, I’m talking about what WK expects from a user and what it’s actually equipping them with. WK expects their users to “understand” the meanings of vocabulary by means of really weak, loose connections provided by whoever wrote the meanings section- I assume Koichi. If the expectation is to remember what the “meanings” of a word are then the description of those meanings should readily equip the user to do so, and I absolutely do not think that’s the case

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Don’t rely on E-J dictionaries. They are not what people mean when talking about using a dictionary to learn the nuances.

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I would love if you were to elaborate here, as it might provide insight for me and anyone else who finds this to be a substantial problem with WK

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They have the same issues that WK has, just defining Japanese words with English glosses.

A monolingual dictionary has the actual nuances in there.

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Oh, well yeah. That’s why I use Goo dictionary- it’s all in Japanese, and even has the dictionary used for distinguishing words. I have THOSE TWO tabs open in the screenshot in my initial post. I thought you meant something else, hahaha

I’m sorry if it felt condescending, that was not my intention. I think I should have explained what I meant by it or not say anything, I just don’t feel like writing a thorough explanation right now, my bad.

We must definitely be talking about different things, because your comment made no sense to me, that’s why I didn’t actually respond to it. :sweat_smile:

So did you try looking for scripts?

EDIT: Here’s the thread I was talking about to ask for scripts.

I’m on my cell phone. I’m not going to zoom way in to read the tabs on your picture when they aren’t relevant to your initial post.

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Hey, don’t knock Garbage. They were big in the '90s.

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You’re good dude. I didn’t look up scripts because I actually dislike using scripts and such as work-arounds, it feels like cheating. And the last time I looked into scripts it didn’t seem like a simple process to start, which… given my schedule right now I don’t know if I have the capacity to try to crack open.

Does my plea at least make sense? Does it not make sense that the meanings section feels like a waste of potential, or that it’s not really helping the user understand what it needs to to properly recognize a vocab word? Like, I have my own decks on Anki, I do what I can to understand a word properly before I start memorizing it, but WK doesn’t really equip the user with what it needs to memorize it properly. At least that’s how it seems, that’s the point I’m trying to make

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Yeah, WK doesn’t give people the tools to use vocab. They aren’t intending to, since the goal is just being able to read the kanji. I feel like you’re underestimating the work it would take to write explanations for all the words.

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If that were the case, why would they quiz you on the meaning? And once again, I think you’re overestimating what I’m suggesting- literally just two or three sentences, which most vocab words already have, but they’re unhelpful 2-3 sentences, save a rare few. And given that most vocab words are pretty self explanatory when it comes to the Kanji that make it up it wouldn’t even need to be a majority of the vocab words on the site.

Take 鼻くそ for example. I will never forget what the meaning is because they took the time to make the connection, in just a couple sentences. Now… imagine every vocab word that isn’t self explanatory to have the same care taken, in just a few sentences. Does that make sense?