Why don't we learn 後 as a standalone word?

後 is the kanji for “Behind, Back” but can also mean “after, afterwards, later”, and whatnot. My issue is that WaniKani doesn’t teach us the vocab for the word “後” by itself. Why?

It teaches us not only 後で あとで, but also 後ろ うしろ. Both of these vocabulary words ignore the stem, which can be read differently depending on how it’s used, similar to 角 which is かく for angle and かど for corner.

“後” does have quite a few meanings and readings, but I wish it was explained like how it is for 角、having a different reading based on the meaning. Stuff such as 後に、のち 、〜の後、etc. are perfectly fine.

Why isn’t it at least mentioned?

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My guess would be because of what you said here

It would likely be a very lengthy explanation, since the reading + meaning switches aren’t as straightforward as they are in the case of 角. I also think it’s because that dabbles a bit in the grammar side of things, which is not really WaniKani’s main purpose. A lot of what specifies 後 meaning when by itself is the particles and verbs that follow it. Since WaniKani is all about the kanji, they’d be less likely to cover that. But it still does beg the point you made of why there isn’t a vocab for 後.

I also wouldn’t say it ignores the stem since it does use the kun’yomi readings, but as you mentioned, these are not really highlighted because of the lack of a vocab term for 後.

Again these are just my guesses :see_no_evil: But it would be beneficial to have the WaniKani team see this and maybe implement a 後 vocab in the future.

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I feel like you’re right in stating that grammar isn’t really WK’s purpose, but I do also agree with you on the fact that there should be a vocab word for 後、at least to clear up any confusion.