Hey look, another Japanese post!
Apr. 15th, 2018 01:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelSo I seem to have very persistent trouble mixing up two particular kanji, 立 (stand) and 六 (six) I mean, not when they're side by side like that, but I keep reading the wrong one. Especially since 六つ and 立つ are both vocab words that pop up. They don't share meaning, they aren't pronounced the same. they aren't even the same parts of speech -- the first is muttsu, a counter word (adjective I guess?) meaning "six things", and the second is tatsu, a verb meaning "to stand".
I know the difference. I just ... pick the wrong one. Frequently.
I also seem to like to mix up 日 (sun/day) and 月 (moon/month), not on their own but in connection with numbers. 六月 rokugatsu means june (I suppose the kanji could also plausibly mean six months? or would that need an additional counter? NB I do know of the Wikipedia page on counters, I'm just being lazy. And sticking to what wanikani uses.) and 六日 muika means six days, but I keep recalling the wrong one. And 月 uses the ichi/ni/san numbers and 日 uses the hito/futa/mit numbers (except not for ichi, because ichinichi is fun to say) but I don't always remember which uses which.
Which is the other thing I mess myself up on: kun vs on readings, when to use which, and *which* is which. Wanikani doesn't teach every reading of each kanji, just the most common one(s), which might be either kun'yomi or on'yomi.vit does say, but I don't remember it. And the theory is that it's faster to learn one pronunciation that occurs the most often, and learn the others when they crop up in vocabulary, but then I try to shove the wrong pronunciation in. 立つ tatsu (to stand) takes the ta reading of 立, but 市立 shiritsu (municipal) takes the ritsu reading of 立, and the main thing that keeps me from trying to put shita as the reading for the latter is that shita is the pronunciation of 下 below (which is sa in words like 下がる "to fall" but shita when used alone) and I wrote a note for myself that 市立 is not 下.
...and then they ask me for the kanji pronunciation they taught, which is neither sa nor shita but ka.
Anyway.
I'm also having minor kanji mixup issues with a few other pairs. 午 and 牛. 石 and 右. 方 and 万. If I'm really tired, 九 and 力 and 刀. I know the differences if I'm paying attention, but if I zone out just a little bit I get it wrong. (And I'm not even trying to write them, which is good because as you can tell, tiny differences matter.)
And I have a bad habit of misreading/mistyping the hiragana *in the vocabulary word* and not checking against what's there -- I will see 生まれる -- umareru, to be born -- but type umoreru うもれる or something, and even though I got the kanji part right, I don't notice the hiragana difference. It's worst when it's a typo, but regardless of whether I meant to type it right, it should be obvious. And it's not. And I submit and get it wrong.
(Luckily the only consequence of "wrong" is that I review it again sooner. There's no permanent grade or score, no points to lose, no punishment. It's nice.)
I know the difference. I just ... pick the wrong one. Frequently.
I also seem to like to mix up 日 (sun/day) and 月 (moon/month), not on their own but in connection with numbers. 六月 rokugatsu means june (I suppose the kanji could also plausibly mean six months? or would that need an additional counter? NB I do know of the Wikipedia page on counters, I'm just being lazy. And sticking to what wanikani uses.) and 六日 muika means six days, but I keep recalling the wrong one. And 月 uses the ichi/ni/san numbers and 日 uses the hito/futa/mit numbers (except not for ichi, because ichinichi is fun to say) but I don't always remember which uses which.
Which is the other thing I mess myself up on: kun vs on readings, when to use which, and *which* is which. Wanikani doesn't teach every reading of each kanji, just the most common one(s), which might be either kun'yomi or on'yomi.vit does say, but I don't remember it. And the theory is that it's faster to learn one pronunciation that occurs the most often, and learn the others when they crop up in vocabulary, but then I try to shove the wrong pronunciation in. 立つ tatsu (to stand) takes the ta reading of 立, but 市立 shiritsu (municipal) takes the ritsu reading of 立, and the main thing that keeps me from trying to put shita as the reading for the latter is that shita is the pronunciation of 下 below (which is sa in words like 下がる "to fall" but shita when used alone) and I wrote a note for myself that 市立 is not 下.
...and then they ask me for the kanji pronunciation they taught, which is neither sa nor shita but ka.
Anyway.
I'm also having minor kanji mixup issues with a few other pairs. 午 and 牛. 石 and 右. 方 and 万. If I'm really tired, 九 and 力 and 刀. I know the differences if I'm paying attention, but if I zone out just a little bit I get it wrong. (And I'm not even trying to write them, which is good because as you can tell, tiny differences matter.)
And I have a bad habit of misreading/mistyping the hiragana *in the vocabulary word* and not checking against what's there -- I will see 生まれる -- umareru, to be born -- but type umoreru うもれる or something, and even though I got the kanji part right, I don't notice the hiragana difference. It's worst when it's a typo, but regardless of whether I meant to type it right, it should be obvious. And it's not. And I submit and get it wrong.
(Luckily the only consequence of "wrong" is that I review it again sooner. There's no permanent grade or score, no points to lose, no punishment. It's nice.)