I know it’s a dumb question but busuu, the main app I’m currently using for kanji, is being kinda confusing about this. On some listening exercises, (and I’m using as the 聞くsituation as an example), they’ll have the audio recording say きく, but as one of the three options to pick from, they’ll only have it written as 聞, not 聞く.
3 comments
聞く
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okurigana
Sometimes, okurigana are optional or omitted (入り口 vs. 入口). This is not one of those times.
聞く and only that. You cannot drop the okurigana here; 聞 is flat out wrong.
Only verb stems can have their okurigana dropped, and even then, it only applies to a select (and somewhat arbitrary) number of stems and contexts.
候 (そうろう, which with okurigana would be 候う) is one counterexample that comes to mind that one has a real chance of coming across. I don’t think there are any others besides old literature in general where okurigana rules were different.