五十音 order (kana chart)

[Rrwrex]

So I’m working on a CSS project to provide some alternate (dark theme) styling to the standard WK pages.

Testing involves clicking all the things I’ve never even looked at in the UI. One of which was the “kana chart” on review and lesson pages. I can see how this feature would be helpful for absolute beginners, but I was typing Japanese before Unicode, much less Wanikani.

Surprise #1

The markup appears to be different on lesson pages than on review pages. (Just a weird technical thing that caught me by surprise.)

Bigger surprise #2

The kana chart has the top row in this order:

あ か さ た は な ま ら 雑多(ざった) く

Wha?!

は before な?! And what is that く supposed to do (doesn’t appear to be clickable to me).

Why isn’t this in the normal 五十音(ごじゅおん) order (あかさたなはまやらわん)?

I can see throwing やわん and other miscellaneous things under 雑多(ざった) but this order mystified me.

I’m curious if anyone knows why.

[Gorbit99]

@Rrwrex

は before な?! And what is that く supposed to do (doesn’t appear to be clickable to me).

That’s most likely a mistake, I assume not many actually open this.

As for the く

Maybe because of some plugin the backspace shows up as く?

Ah, I’m on a lesson page, might be different on the review page

Edit 2: I checked, that’s not a く that’s a backwards arrow, or to be exact, a chevron left

[Rrwrex]

@Gorbit99

Ah, I’m on a lesson page, might be different on the review page

Yes, seems to be this. I just disabled all scripts and stylesheets and still see the く on the reviews page.

There are hints that the lessons pages have a newer (non “legacy”) version of the kana chart that haven’t been replicated on the review pages yet.

So I think you’re right: probably just bugs. Still surprising, though.

@Gorbit99

Edit 2: I checked, that’s not a く that’s a backwards arrow, or to be exact, a chevron left

Ah! Lol. Old eyes catch me out again.

[Gorbit99]

@Rrwrex

I just disabled all scripts and stylesheets and still see the く on the reviews page.

It’s this symbol. Kind of a weird choice, as you would at least expect a full arrow, or an arrow with a vertical line to mean “backspace”, but no

[Rrwrex]

Many better choices, including standard unicode entities:

⌫

[Gorbit99]

That’s also a fontawesome character, but tbh, the “Backspace” from the lesson view might be one of the better fitting options.
Not quite sure why the keyboard is necessary in the first place to be honest.

[Rrwrex]

Regardless of the glyph/icon/visual representation, what does that button do?

I can’t figure out the intent. Why is it there at all?

@Gorbit99

Not quite sure why the keyboard is necessary in the first place to be honest.

Beginners might not know how to type じゃ or ず or っ vs. つ for example, so I see why they have the feature. I’m just surprised at the order (and mystified by the backspace).

[Gorbit99]

@Rrwrex

Regardless of the glyph/icon/visual representation, what does that button do?

You mean the chevron left? That’s the backspace. It’s just grey for some reason, which would signal that it doesn’t work.

@Rrwrex

Beginners might not know how to type じゃ or ず or っ vs. つ for example, so I see why they have the feature. I’m just surprised at the order (and mystified by the backspace).

And will they magically learn it after using that? A table that shows how all the characters can be written would function much better in that sense.

[Rrwrex]

@Gorbit99

And will they magically learn it after using that? A table that shows how all the characters can be written would function much better in that sense.

It isn’t obvious that the top row are clickable buttons, but yes, that’s the intent of the feature, it is the entire table, but requires clicking:

[Gorbit99]

Ah, I knew that I’m just stupid and didn’t see the romaji under the buttons. It’s quite obvious without a skin. I just don’t get why it needs to be a keyboard as well, and why isn’t it just a proper table without the buttons. Could fit on a single screen without having to switch back and forth.

Also, some of the romaji is a bit unnecessary:

[Rrwrex]

Presented as an 8x14 table it might be even harder to understand what it’s trying to convey.

As for jya vs ja, I think it’s taught that way in Japan, and it does make input more consistent (that “ja” is accepted is a nicety, but an exception).

I’d think it would probably be better to just replace the whole thing with a link to the tofugu article.

I wonder if anyone on WK learned to type something like 劣化(れっか) as “reltsuka” instead of “rekka”?

[Gorbit99]

@Rrwrex

I wonder if anyone on WK learned to type something like 劣化(れっか) as “reltsuka” instead of “rekka”?

Be true to yourself, rextsuka

[tofugu-scott]

@Rrwrex

Surprise #1

The markup appears to be different on lesson pages than on review pages. (Just a weird technical thing that caught me by surprise.)

Bigger surprise #2

The kana chart has the top row in this order:

あ か さ た は な ま ら 雑多(ざった) く

Wha?!

I just wanted to mention that this has been resolved and is live in the preview app and will be rolled out at the end of the month.