A few minutes ago, I came up with a really nice idea for a WaniKani app
… Or I think it could be useful. I’m not a programmer and therefore have no means to put my idea into reality, but maybe someone could make it happen.
Anyways, I was thinking about the apps that combine the alarm clock with math calculations - you have to type in the correct answer for a simple math question (for ex. 45+12=?) to make the alarm stop. With this, your brain has to warm up a little bit, therefore pulling you from the sleepy/zombie morning mode, making it easier for you to get up. And even if you’re not in the mood of doing maths early morning (which I think nobody is), you have to force yourself to make the alarm clock shut the hell up.
I was wondering whether a similar thing would be possible for WaniKani - an app that would make you do just 1 review (the next in your queue) to stop the alarm clock. I’m sure even the most hardcore WaniKaniers will have a couple of reviews after several hours of sleep, making it a universal app which could also help you improve your japanese a little bit. As we know all, we learn the best when we are forced to… and that would be a really brutal way to do so :).
You certainly could make a device that would force you to enter the correct information before it stops doing whatever annoying thing it is doing but there’s no good way to have that “review” count toward your WK progress.
The API only lets you get the information from the items you currently have available. There is no way through the API to submit anything - especially not a review status (otherwise there would probably be a lot more level 50s). So your device would have to actually log into the real WK site, start an actual review session, make sure you get exactly 1 item (reading and meaning) and then end the review once you’ve answered them correctly. While theoretically possible, it seems highly impracticable.
Well, it seems pretty unpractical in the way you explained it, so maybe you’re right…
Then maybe the app could just force you to answer 1 review without necessarily counting to your WK progress (1 review wouldn’t really make any difference anyway). Is it possible to for an app to import 1 reading and meaning from API and test you before stopping the alarm?
Yes the API will let you do that. Well, you can definitely grab a random single item. I’m not sure if there is a way to only grab an item from your active review queue.
The only caveat there is that since you are effectively making your own answering mechanism (not using the review page), you have to decide how to accept and check that the answer is correct. So you’d have to make decisions about whether you want to use romaji or have an IME for the readings and whether you want to implement a spell checker or only accept exact matches for the meanings.
I actually have an alarm clock app on my android phone that does that, i forget what they called the function. App is called “sleep as android”
Psycoder said... Yes the API will let you do that. Well, you can definitely grab a random single item. I'm not sure if there is a way to only grab an item from your active review queue.The best solution would be to mimick the WaniKani, so IME for readings and accept minor ortographical mistakes for meanings.
The only caveat there is that since you are effectively making your own answering mechanism (not using the review page), you have to decide how to accept and check that the answer is correct. So you'd have to make decisions about whether you want to use romaji or have an IME for the readings and whether you want to implement a spell checker or only accept exact matches for the meanings.
However, as I've already mentioned, I don't have the necessary knowledge to programme a phone app. It's cool to know though that theoretically it's possible to make such an app - thanks for the responses. Maybe one day I'll make it real ;)
I’d imagine an in-app browser combined with a modified version of the review reorder userscript would work… No need to muck around just to try to replicate what the WK team has already done with answer checking that way
In the long run it would be too much of a bother to use a system like this in the morning, but if you are looking at hardcore learners that would like such a challenge in the morning, i see no need to restrain them with my own laziness. But if the system should be applied to the app, i don’t think it should be able to count towards your overall score, that would force people to try and keep up and then by also use the system to keep others from gaining unfair amounts of points from the use of this system.
Overall, the application could work (I don’t know anything about programming and such) and i think that the idea of giving some of the hardcore types some extra play tools sounds wonderful, i just don’t think that the progress gained from this should count towards the overall WK score.
Daniel