Better ways to remember こう readings? And ways to keep from getting disheartened?

Items going one level down because you misremembered them is part of the learning process and imo actually helps me know what I should focus on. Sometimes I am not sure but then get it right and in the end kinda wished I did it wrong so I can review the item more times naturally.
What gets really annoying though, is making typos, especially when doing reviews on phone such as pressing enter instead of backspace or m etc…

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I’m way more flexible with this rule. I feel it’s not a valuable usage of my time to keep word forever in my SRS system just because of inadvertence.

It was already mention by a previous comment but Wanikani only show you a word without the context. In real reading situation, what are the odds you are mistaken the character for Four 四 and the character for West 西. If I had failed those just before burning them, there’s no way I wouldn’t correct it with the double-check. I don’t want words that I’m comfortable with piling up in the SRS system.

There are already a lot of reviews to be done. I burn them and read to supplement Wanikani, it prevents me from burning out and quitting altogether :slight_smile:

From my experience, it’s better to give yourself some leniency and let a word pass if it increases your chance of reaching higher levels of wanikani. Upon a few month after burning items, I will see if I still remember them and if I don’t, it won’t be too late to resurrect them slowly to reincorporate in the SRS system at a pace fitting the overall workload.

Everyone has their own tactics, at the end of the day, what only matters is that you learned something new !

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I take advantage of the similar readings to make "bad puns":joy:

Example:
来る = くる = come
車 = くるま = car
I come by car = I くる by くるま :joy:
Of course the grammar is atrocious, but anyway the goal is to help me remember the kanji reading easier.

Sometimes shorter mnemonics are more effective than the complicated story-based ones.

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I keep a list on my virtual notepad of all sorts of random Japanese items I want to remember, and a big part of it is exactly this - readings that go with multiple kanji. I’m pretty sure that “kou” is the longest part of that list!

Now and then, I find it helpful to just read through the meanings of all the “kou” kanji one after another - “public, construction, mouth, mix, light” etc. Or to test myself by seeing how many of them I can think of in quick succession, then check myself against the list.

(However, I don’t refer to that list when doing reviews, as I feel that undermines the goal of learning. It’s just for my own studying on the side.)

I can completely identify with this, but I think it’s a natural part of the learning process. When I see a new kanji, I tend to focus, if possible, on the one thing that makes it different from all the kanji I already know - e.g. “it has ‘stand’ on the top” or “it has a certain pattern at the bottom left that I’ve never seen before.”

Going forward, I can then instantly ID the kanji based on that feature … until I encounter another kanji that has that same feature! And then of course I can’t tell the two of them apart, and I have to look more closely at the first kanji so as to identify another feature that distinguishes it from the second one.

For example, in order to tell “noon” and “cow” apart, I had to notice that “cow” has that little vertical projection at the top, and to tell “noon” and “arrow” apart, I had to notice the split bottom on “arrow.” (Apologies, there are probably technical terms for these features that I don’t know.)

I’m not sure this is really the ideal approach. It would seem more virtuous to memorize every stroke of every kanji the moment you meet it, as you would have to do if learning to write them. But I think the brain naturally looks for shortcuts (or is this just my brain?), and to me, it makes sense that you would understand each kanji more deeply as you meet more things that are similar to it.

Likewise, imagine learning vocabulary in English - you might know “big,” but when you encounter “tall,” “large,” “wide,” “huge,” and “great,” it not only extends your vocabulary, it also gives you a more precise understanding of how to use “big” in the first place.

That’s a really good point actually and I think I’ll start doing that

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