Sometimes I’m just bopping along doing some reviews, I see a single character come up (like 牛), and I enter a reading (like ぎゅう), and then I feel sad when it shows me red, because of course it wants the word for cow and not the onyomi. This is frustrating! I know the word for cow! It would be nice if wanikani recognized that the thing I entered would have been accepted for that character as kanji and just did that shaky text field thing it does to scold you in other contexts.
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It can be frustrating, especially if you really did know the correct answer, so it’s important to slow down a bit and pay attention to what WK is looking for during reviews
This is addressed in the FAQ as well (last part specifically):
For times like this, it can be useful to have a script installed so that you don’t have to get it wrong (*if you really knew it), such as the Override Script or Double-Check Script, but of course those should be used with caution ^^
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Yeah–I understand that the suggested fix is “either pay more attention or install a third-party extension to get the behavior you want”; I just figured Feedback was the right place to say that I think the current default is a bad user experience. Shaking would be perfectly fine, and the FAQ response doesn’t effectively justify “no wiggle here” (to me; I’m sure other people have different opinions).
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Also: thank you, MissMisc; I do appreciate taking the time to answer and to point out specific scripts.
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These cases are really so rare (I’d guess 1 in 1000 for myself) that it’s not worth worrying about. IMHO installing any extension to fix this situation would do way more harm than good as you may end up relying on it as a crutch.
Getting things wrong is important as it signifies which items need more review.
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I think the marking it wrong keeps me more honest and makes the difference between an acceptable reading for kanji and an acceptable reading for vocab very very clear.
Although, I think a setting to turn on an ignore answer button (that’s turned off by default) wouldn’t be a bad implementation.
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This happens to me all the time, and I hate it. If I saw it in the context of a sentence, one word kanjis pronunciation is always clear to me, but when you go back and forth between giving answers for kanji and vocabulary, it’s frustrating to get it wrong.
I know they try to illustrate it with color background, but I just think it’d be better if the reorder script was the default. Always been frustrated WaniKani never acknowledges these as a problem despite it being a big enough issue that the user base fixes it with hacks.
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To be fair, onyomi and kunyomi readings of kanji are often used in the same sentences so it’s invaluable to be able to switch back and forth.
The point of a piece of software like WK is not to get to lvl 60, it’s to learn the language. It’s more effective if you make it hard for yourself.
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Disagree. You’re comparing apples and oranges. Jukugo words are not confusing by virtue of having 2 symbols or more right there next to each other. The only ambiguity comes from single-symbol kanji words. I don’t think it’s more effective anyway to fail you for the word. Instead of moving a step forward, it moves you a step backward which increases the number of items sitting in your queue. You should minimize the ones in your queue because a big queue is extremely demotivating. Furthermore, it’s extremely demotivating to be marked wrong on something you know, and motivation is the single biggest factor in learning anything.
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Serious question, are you color blind?
I’ve never had even a slight issue distinguishing the purple from the pink background. There are some palette swap extensions if you have difficulty with that.
Otherwise git gud n3rd (凸ಠ益ಠ)凸
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In terms of the reorder script - the point of mixing the reviews is to diversify your study, so that there’s less chance of tunnel vision and the like. You have to keep your brain more engaged if reviews are mixed rather than ordered.
Check out this article:
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lol can never criticize anything on these forums without being memed at and insulted. I have my gripes with WaniKani, and as soon as I finish my own implementation that fixes all their problems, I intend to use it. One-size fits all solutions don’t work the same for every person, so there’s really not a point arguing. Enough the user base obviously finds it frustrating or all of these scripts wouldn’t exist.
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True, but you do have to balance motivation with other key ingredients like discipline, for example. The strictness of WK’s approach is a good balance for some but not for all. Which is why a setting to include an ignore button may be good (but default still be erring on the side of caution).
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The article you sent me isn’t talking about the order. It’s just saying you should study a particular radical, then the kanji affiliated with the radical, then the words affiliated with the kanji.
To be honest, I think they should just give you a sentence, highlight it, and ask how it should be read in the context of the sentence. Using colors handicaps you.
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“Let’s put our Japanese sentences, radicals, kanji, and vocab all into one big pile.” is the subtitle, implying to throw them all together.
Not trying to criticize, just pointing out why things are the way they are. Obviously, one size fits all is not possible, so it’s awesome that people do take the time to customize! 
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Context for my frustration: I know 牛. I’ve known 牛 for probably fifteen years (I studied Japanese in college but haven’t practiced much in the last decade; wk seemed like a nice way to get back into it). If I get something wrong because I don’t know it, then it’s great for it to move down a level and get more review, but if I miss something because I think it’s asking for kanji and it really wants vocabulary, moving the word down a level doesn’t do anything useful. Context is how I decide what the appropriate reading for a character is, and a colored background or changed text size are not part of that context when I’m actually reading something, so it’s not super compelling in this tool. The scripts seem useful, but I don’t love adding random scripts to my browser–I like the idea of making an ignore button an optional setting.
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Not a bad idea. I wonder if it might attune you to the sentence more than the word/kanji, though? 
Cuz you would have limited sample sentences, I mean.
Perhaps. Could always pull them from an exterior source like tatoeba and randomize it. Personally I think it’d help me learn the language more because I’d read the sentence and try to figure it out and then it could deliver the meaning at the end. Also, I think it would help in that you would see what context the word is used in. Especially if they could filter sample sentences involving the kanji you already know.
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Taking the time to analyze sentences from Tatoeba wouldn’t be all that productive, I feel. The sentences are written by anyone who wants to contribute, so usage and grammar are not guaranteed to be natural.