Hi everybody, this is my first post here.
I’ve been using Wanikani for more than three weeks and I am very happy about it.
I have only one question/complain, why not using katakana for the on-yomi reading of the kanji?
In my opinion this would help a lot in vocabulary words reading.
For example in my last review I missed hiroi (wide).
When I saw the word I thought “ok, this is an -i adjective, for sure I need the kun-yomi reading, unfortunately I remember only the on-yomi, that is ‘hiro’”. I put some random stuff only to discover that what I learned was instead the kun-yomi!
In my opinion using separate kanas for on and kun will help visually a lot memorizing the pronunciation associated with the kanjis, and will help a lot “guessing” the on+on and kun+kun words reading.
That’s something dictionaries do for the purpose of categorising readings, but nothing is ever written that way in the real world.
EDIT: to expand on that, it would probably give the impression that answering in katakana is acceptable or required, when neither is really true. We already have people who try to answer with the commas and multiple readings when those are shown.
The info pages for the kanji list the readings, including ones not taught (though occasionally they are incomplete).
You can use Katakana madness. When you have to type on’yomi it’ll type it in katakana. When you look up a kanji on’yomi will be shown in katakana. I hope it helps
Don’t worry. In time, you’ll begin to see the patterns that Chinese readings match and you will usually be able to distinguish between on’yomi and kun’yomi based on their sound itself.
