On WaniKani
This is a post in its idea generation phase. I'm collecting notes for what to write about. Proceed at will.
Good
- Visual design: colors, URLs
- API design: that extensibility is possible
- Quirkiness
- Teaching you just a couple readings
- Contrast w/ vocab on Anki deck
- The split b/w radical, kanji, vocab (and that itās not just kanji).
- Itās actually funny ppl focus so much on learning kanji; now that iām doing it later, iām way more interested in learning vocab
- Coming up with mnemonics is actually a ton of work. Try doing it on your own for vocab when starting. Will make you appreciate WK doing it for you, when some would otherwise seem half-baked.
What Iāve learned
- You need to be learning Japanese separately, or else it wonāt just be unmotivating, but it wonāt really make sense
- Seeing things actually used turns this from super artificial to helpful
- I forget exactly where I saw, but I saw implied you can āfrontloadā WK to speak and then learn Japanese. I donāt think this would work for most people sustainably. (Lang takes a long time.)
- Oh, they have it on one of Tofuguās pages about starting to learn Japanese! They reference it in a pull quote, and I think they even explicitly say to do it in their guide.
- Mental model for radicals and kanji being abstract
- Mental model for why so many readings: think about assigning characters to words after the fact
Bad
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the frustrating thing about constantly referring to onyomi and kunyomi isnāt that we have to do it, but itās that heās constantly using information that we didnāt learn, so youāre constantly a bit confused. itās not like āoh we have to use K for X and O for Y,ā itās like āi didnāt know (and wonāt remember, because itās not in a mnemonic and not something weāre trying to learn) which are K and O, so your explanations arenāt referencing something i really know.ā but these explanations are like, for every single vocab.
- Like āThe reading for this word is all kunāyomi despite being jukugo. Just think of sketchy things going on in the downtown, just like how thereās sketchy kunāyomi readings for this word. You should know both the kunāyomi readings from the previous level, though, so if you do you know the reading for this word as well.ā (for äøēŗ)
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You can tell global inconsistencies from, e.g., teaching ä½ę and ä½ę„ where he acknowledges the multiple readings, vs ä½å¹“ where heās like āyou should know thisā
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Donāt differentiate between similar vocab (probably have this below)
- Production different ā mnemonics donāt help (can tell using kaniwani). mnemonics are only for kanji part
- Some explicit comparisons would be helpful
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Extra lessons re, e.g., patterns about intransitive vs transitive
- Can have some bonus distinguishing types
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Example sentences are almost always not useful
- Itās cute that theyāre silly, but Iāve found only maybe two out of hundreds that I can read.
- This means that you donāt get any context for the vocabulary. Seeing / hearing vocabulary in context is huge. I think this may be the weakest thing about WKāyou learn isolated sound bytes and words, but you donāt hear them in the Japanese language. This means you have an entirely separate phase of learning where you need to see / hear words in actual context. That phase could be introduced in WK if the example sentences were more useful.
- This would be completely acceptable if they actually read the sentences out loud, but they donāt
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High level takeaway is that it seems that the people who made it didnāt actually need to use it to learn Japanese, because some of the confusing things happen very early on
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First many things you learn are OY, then donāt use. Frustrating. Esp. frustrating becauseā¦
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Not teaching you whether learning KY vs OY
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Mnemonics are not helpful for KY vs OY
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Donāt take advantage of sequential learning or patterns
- e.g., numbers, months
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Canāt adjust SRS timing
- I want to have to repeat more. My memory isnāt as good as it used to be.
- Most motivated people seem treat it like a game and cram through as much as fast as possible. While I felt that way on previous (failed) attempts, I donāt at all this time. (Itās also funny to treat it like a game thatās āgating your progressā because itās just a nice flash card app with really good cards you whose intervals you canāt customize)
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seems like random number of synonyms (and sometimes alternate spellings?)
- Wish theyād separate what to memorize from what they accept
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Donāt distinguish things that seem to have the same meaning
- 儳ć®åć儳åć
- ęåćå
- There are good cases of this, e.g., description of å¦ć¶ There is another word that means āto learnā that is going to be more common, which is ēæć. Youāll learn this one later on. å¦ć¶ sounds a little more serious compared to ēæć, so keep that in mind when you use it.
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Doesnāt consistently distinguish mnemonics for the same meaning. E.g., first ę» (death), then äŗ” (death). The second mnemonic is a generic ādeathā-related wacky thing.
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The whole avoiding kunyomi thing almost works, but doesnāt ā you still benefit greatly from learning patterns, but have to do it without their structure
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Same mnemonics with different pronunciations
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Be more data driven
- See when people actually forget
- e.g., lvl 60 guy that says his secret was to always review after learning. i also find i need a refresher before my review is available and i can do it. this means the forgetting is not calibrated.
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Donāt pronounce kanji
- this might not be possible. but it might.
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Donāt pronounce word use examples or context sentences
- As a beginner, almost always words or Kanji Iām not sure about, and having in-context readings would really help how to say them.
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Radicals are clearly composed of others, but they donāt show it that way
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No reverse (could join with next point)
- Fortunately, kaniwani exists
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Should build (or generate) quizzes vs similar / commonly confused radicals. Itās easy to guess which chapter something is from so you donāt get much overlap of confusing things in order to practice distinguishing them. This is esp. important because they get morphed later on.
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Mnemonics can be half-baked
- Itās hard to come up with good ones, I found making them myself
- but still youāre paying for them
- especially, which part of the word is used? e.g., ākeā or āketaā for āketalā
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A handful of useful, obvious features are missing
- A free frontend app someone made even has them!
- You have to install userscripts which clash and break
- My main ones are:
- pitch info
- katakana (they say itās obscure and for dictionaries; Iāve seen it commonly elsewhere, and really need katakana practice)
- meaning and reading together (note: they quote research to support not doing this, but the research does not support this actual point. plus, itās a setting as a learning one should get to choose)
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adding this but might be part of another: not helpful for remembering which reading goes with which. example: å°ēæ vocab, alt kunyomi for å° (ko), and the mnemonic is totally unrelated to this word
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even when thereās two ones we learned, not helping distinguish. e.g., vocab äøę£, we learn ććć first for ę£, and no explanation when the other is used.
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nothing helping distinguishing radicals that are similar conceptually
- é gold vs å® treasure
- sometimes they do w/ e.g. run vs foot radicals
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some radicals seem clearly wrong
- the gold radical says itās two sets of spikes? https://www.wanikani.com/radicals/gold
Semi-unrelated
- EtoEto just radio silence dropped, not even online any more, which was part of my incentive to buy WK. Loved the real lang + breakdowns of various depths w/ hotkeys. Wish they just kept what they had online.