Wow, this is pretty interesting…I didn’t realize this. @Tizzysawr, do you have a full list of the ones you’ve encountered so far that don’t have the proper meaning? I would like to add them as user synonyms.
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Wow, is this a thing? Oo’
What dictionary are you using? Daijirin gives two descriptions for the kanji 閣：
- 高い建物, 立派な建物 “tall building, palace”
- 「内閣」の略 “abbreviation of ‘cabinet’”
I realize the second meaning isn’t listed in Jisho, but I’d trust a J-J dictionary like Daijirin first. As I’m sure you know, kanji aren’t vocabulary. Their “meanings” are often multifaceted, and very broad and very vague.
I’m not saying WK shouldn’t include all possible definitions as synonyms when possible. But “cabinet” definitely isn’t wrong. And it’s certainly the more helpful meaning in relation to the vocab it’s applied to on WK, every one of which is a shade of that description. If WK were teaching 天守閣, then the “tower” description might be more important, but it isn’t.
And even jisho lists “counter for machines” as a meaning for 台. Daijirin gives eight separate descriptions of that kanji.
Were there others?
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The kanji have no meanings, right or wrong, in English. Japanese dictionaries won’t give you English definitions. So, I guess all of the kanji meanings on WK are wrong in that sense.
The “pedestal” meaning of 台 is built into some of the words on WK, such as 舞台 and 滑り台, and yeah they should have pedestal as a synonym, but to say it doesn’t carry any association with machines would be stupid. Whoever corrected you for that doesn’t seem to realize that most kanji have many meanings.
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I wouldn’t say ‘stupid’. Perhaps misguided, wrong, or uninformed. Language is a sensitive subject to both native speakers and learners.
I’ve been gathering the ones I find odd in the last few levels, mostly because I study outside WK and also because at times WK does mental gymnastics to justify the relation between a vocabulary item and its definition of a kanji when they could have just defaulted to what a dictionary would say. Some examples are:
供 - WK says “Servant”, Takoboto (which is taken from Kanjidict database) says “Submit, offer, present, serve (meal), accompany”
載 - WK says “Publish”, Tako says “Ride, board, get on, place, spread, 10**44”
候 - WK says “Climate, candidate”, Tako makes no mention of “Candidate” being a meaning, although it is used in words that mean Candidate.
構 - WK says “Set up”, Tako says “Posture, build, pretend.” I can at least see a relation on this one, tho.
往 - WK says “Depart”, Tako says “Journey, travel, chase away, let go, going, before, formerly.” Once again there’s a relation, but not quite the same.
郎 - WK says “Guy”, Tako says “Son, counter for sons.”
康 - WK says “Health”, Tako says “Ease, peace.”
惑 - WK says “Misguided,” Tako says “Beguile, illusion, perplexity.” Related once again, but not quite the same.
絶 - WK says “Extinction,” Tako says “Discontinue, beyond, sever, cut off, abstain, interrupt, suppress.” Once again related, but not quite.
索 - WK says “Search,” Tako says “Cord, rope.”
And that’s just for about lvls 25-30 or so. There are quite likely many more, and I don’t get why they wouldn’t give us the proper (or in some cases the added) meanings. Some of the omitted meanings would make explaining vocabulary much easier, and while I must commend @chrispthompson for looking them up on Daijrin (I don’t have it!), I do feel like I should trust Tako/Jisho/Kanjidict more than WK. It could be some of the “wrong” kanji up there actually just mean several things that Tako omitted, but why not add the extra meanings, the ones completely different like the one on 索 to the list?
Regardless of the disagreement on what the actual definition of an individual kanji character is (if any), I think it would still be useful to add the other meanings to the kanji page, especially if they are really common. This is pretty much what @Tizzysawr is proposing. Also I think @Leebo might have edited their post 
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WK isn’t promising to teach every meaning of every word. The lack of some English synonyms that could be argued for is not a huge deal. I only bother emailing WK for missing readings, since we can’t edit our own readings.
What makes you say that?
Put in my time as JET and spent as much off time as I could helping out around the community and volunteering in various capacities for international events. After I started doing work to help with the annual Hong Kong exchange program, I was able to make some contacts within the city’s department of tourism. I sort of lucked out that I was here just as the city was becoming serious about inbound tourism, and they offered me a position. Now I’m in charge of the inbound tourism project at city hall.
It’s less money and fewer benefits compared to the time I spent with JET, but infinitely more rewarding work.
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I don’t really want to start a flame war, but I wondered about the “stupid” part.
I said stupid, he didn’t highlight that part of the message, but mentioned it. And it still says stupid now. I can’t edit his message to properly quote the message, but there’s no issue.
Okay. I am the stupid one now. 
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Here. No need to start a “fight” ^^
That’s rough.
I’m just going to quietly walk away from this thread and pretend I didn’t say anything…
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I’m curious what your reason is for this?
edit – just to clarify, we are in complete agreement that more meanings listed for kanji on WK would be a huge improvement! And I love that you are keeping track of items in question and hope you’ll pass them on to the WK team, who have continued to update the content constantly over the years and do very much want to get it right.
The thing I’m uncomfortable with is your assertion that there are “proper” english language meanings of kanji or that WK’s are “wrong.” If you need proof that there is no “proper” or standardized set of English language meanings for kanji, have a look at this spreadsheet:
And that sheet doesn’t even contain the meanings from Henshall “guide to remembering Japanese characters,” – which contains completely different versions of the meanings for almost every one of the examples you list above.
more on those examples:
- here’s one of the sources for 供 as “servant.”
- Also jisho does include “publish” as a meaning for 載 and “searching” as a meaning for 索.
- All of the other kanji meanings you mention can be found on kanjidamage.
- Except 郎 - which is an interesting one! WWWJDIC does say “son, counter for sons” but Henshall lists only “man” and “husband” – I think “guy” is a pretty good compromise, no?
WWWJDIC (which is the primary source for Jisho and the only source for Tako) is just one non-native speaker’s version of this information. Koichi is also not a native Japanese speaker! And there are dozens and dozens of other resources and books spanning decades that present this information differently. But ultimately, they are all English-language interpretations and up for debate.
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You’re splitting hairs over shades of meaning in English, for kanji, which have no inherent meaning, but symbolic association with often broadly related ideas.
In short, I think your contention is misguided, at best. Although more synonyms wouldn’t necessarily hurt, there is nothing wrong in the chosen definitions.
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I think you want WK to be a complete guide to kanji, i.e. you know all interpretations from the kanji content to infer the meaning of any new vocabulary.
However, WK is not even trying to achieve what you want. It teaches just the closest meaning(s) to the vocabulary included in WK, and cuts some corners to be more memorable. The “wrong” meanings are used verbatim in the mnemonics, having 10 (possibly obscure) meanings up front would just confuse my learning.
Still, it’s a good idea to look up the new kanji, and “invisible” meanings could be included as well.
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nyuuuu～
i think is better to understanding kanji is just concept～ not exact meaning～ besides take all rest 4000 jinmeiyou kanji won’t give nice meaning if forced to translated to english～
actually、im not too fond with jisho or such、so im prefer kanji jitenon or kanjipedia 、i think you can read J-J dictionary definition easily with your current level～
if you don’t have daijirin you can use kotobank.jp 、it using same daijirin dictionary data～ so you can get how kanji meaning works～☆
WK is not perfect～ some on kun missing、some typo on reibun、 have weird mnemonics which im never used、but it have nice interface and system and Kristen always make improvement with new content ！！ so i think it’s wiser to set aside all WK shortcoming and keep forward with your current knowledge～
besides、there’s no 「stupid」 when someone learning、we just make mistake or lack of understanding or miss-informed、which is part of learning～ always appreciate others～♡
外寛内明～
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I have no problem with saying a teacher is doing something stupid if it’s stupid. It doesn’t mean that they are stupid. Scolding students for something that isn’t wrong is a stupid thing to do.