Can vocab just reject readings put in the meaning field instead of counting them wrong?

You (perhaps unintentionally) implied that a change would need to be made for all items individually, whereas it would almost certainly be done programmatically.

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Yes! I tried making this type of argument about a month ago on the kanji/vocab thing. You’re not going to find a lot of support for it here. The WaniKani community seems pretty bent on defending the current system no matter what.

I was under the false impression that many people were here, like me, to get better at reading Japanese. It seems a lot of people are actually here to get good at WaniKani. Once you understand this mindset shift, their replies make a lot more sense.

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@Hilbert90 Or perhaps people just don’t want WaniKani wasting time on features they think would be useless? For the record, I’m not against the suggested change. But I think it’s solving the wrong problem. I don’t think any other SRS flashcard program has the proposed feature either. But they don’t need it because they have a way to undo typos and mistaken entry like this (at least Anki, iKnow, and Kitsun support this). Really WaniKani should just get over their weirdness about not supporting an undo button and give people more flexibility.


@SparklingLimeade If you’re looking for something to help while this feature doesn’t exist, try the Double Check script. It won’t catch your errors ahead of time, but it will let you undo them after the fact. It also has built in (via its settings) a delay so that you can’t accidentally press Enter too fast and move to the next question after a typo.

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To be fair, the only required changes I see are already implemented in scripts: Override for when a mistake irrelevant to your Kanji learning occurs, and Close, but no Cigar for when it wants to make you learn something incorrect for some reason (rice is ice, etc) (just don’t type the right answer in if you did make an actual mistake, as you can’t ignore correct answers).

The Double Check script might do this better, though. I’ll need to try it.

Software will always need babysitting by an educated user to perform it’s best.

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Just get yourself one of the double check/override script, it saved me from failing a burn with 女, because you know, pressing three times on “n” isn’t something I do regularly, also saves me from my unability to write properly and my pushiness with the WK meaning wrongness allowance, oh my god I should go to sleep I can’t find words

Hitting “Backspace” lets you retype your answer. That’s how I deal with this problem.

Edit: Tried to repost it with a reply to the first post, but looks like it didn’t work.

I also wholeheartedly agree! WaniKani overlords, please make this happen!

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I don’t believe i implied that, but agree to disagree.

In the midst of all this yelling about the moral character of people who do or don’t want this feature, can I just state the obvious here?

ANY knowledge testing system is going to have some (seemingly arbitrary) rules built into it, and as a result any such system will also be testing your ability to follow the rules (as well as your actual knowledge).

Teachers (human or computer) can’t read minds[1]. We can only monitor your learning based on what you say/write and only if you give us useable input[2]. I’ve seen so many students flub exams because they didn’t read the instructions, didn’t answer what was being asked, and when they say “but I KNEW it!” all I can say is “but you didn’t SHOW me you knew it!”

So yes if it’s doable program-wise, I’d love to see WK give an extra warning wiggle (it already does that if you put kana in the meaning field or romaji in the reading field).

But let’s not accuse people of being sloppy personalities or robot sycophants cuz at the end of the day there will always be some element of arbitrariness that the learner will have to pay attention to and follow. That’s the price we pay for not being telepathic robots[3].

[1] This is a shocking and close-kept secret! I may get into big trouble for telling you about it!

[2] Especially for computers. Human teachers can at least try to figure things out from context when students start writing about the “Japanese Candy Pictographic System” or whatever.

[3] Most of us, anyway. I mean, I don’t want to make assumptions about all of you.

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Honestly? Just get it. You will not regret it. You will eventually just zone out again, and again, no matter how well you think you are paying attention, and it’s just way too annoying to get it wrong for no reason.

Even if Vocabulary doesn’t stop you from leveling up, you don’t necessarily want 1000 reviews because you can’t get simple stuff out of apprenticeship.

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What I don’t understand is why some people feel the need to give the OP unsolicited comments about his study methods. This is a feature request thread and he requested a feature, any other comment on how the OP studies or the supposed faults in his study methods are not only rude, but simply off topic.

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I guess I’ll reply. I was going to let it be, but apparently my reply offended people so much that it got removed (probably a sign that I’m onto something). I hope you weren’t one of the people who flagged it.

I think my comment needs to be taken in context. It is a reply to someone who makes a great argument for why the feature listed would be beneficial for actually learning to read.

Many of the replies here (and also the ones I got when I made a similar argument elsewhere) are of the form: “just learn to see the colors” or “you got it wrong so it should be marked wrong, suck it up and get better,” “be more careful and proofread,” etc.

(Obviously, those aren’t exact quotes, but they capture the sentiment).

The community is basically defending the status quo with these comments, and they are telling the person to get better at WaniKani rather than think about whether the feature would actually benefit someone who is merely using WaniKani to get better at reading.

I see no reason why people should have been offended at my comment. By pointing out this difference in mindset, I was able to make sense of why people were responding the way they were. Several people liked my comment, so others clearly thought it made sense.

If anyone who flagged my comment sees this, please consider why you were so offended.

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I was not, and I’m surprised it was flagged enough to get hidden. What you said was a little too pointed, which is why I responded as directly as I did in return. But I don’t think it should have been flagged.

They did make a great argument. That doesn’t necessarily mean the feature is worth implementing, depending on what percentage of users might actually benefit from it. But I do think it made a great distinction between formal testing and learning processes.

Keep in mind that many users who have expressed confusion between the reading and meaning questions had never actually noticed the color cues. In those cases, (some of) the responses you’re complaining about are actually helpful. Even some people when told to be more careful basically respond with “sigh, I guess you’re right”. The problem of course is that when there are dozens of voices saying the same thing, it can come off as dismissive (or even attacking) instead of helpful.

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I completely agree with every single word you said, and I find extremely sad that many people flagged your comment as ‘offensive’, but it also proves you were and are absolutely right. P

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Being flagged proves nothing one way or the other. If you say bigoted statements that would also get flagged. That doesn’t make the bigoted statements true. (That obviously wasn’t the case here, but your assertion has no basis.)

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My response telling someone they’re on a high horse was also flagged

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Several posts from this thread:

Though it should be noted that

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Wow, the discussion in this thread is around 700% more heated than necessary.

I personally don’t remember ever having this problem - when I started with WaniKani, I didn’t know anything and did my reviews really slow and carful. By the time I managed to go faster, I was already trained to differentiate reading/meaning questions quickly.

However, I also don’t think that counting an answer that is a correct reading, when asked for a meaning, as wrong has any benefits for learning Kanji. Additionally, I was interested in learning how to write WaniKani userscripts, so here is my attempt at implementing the requested behavior (input reading when asked for meaning → shake + try again): The Meaning of 六 is roku¹

The script is mostly based on Close But No Cigar by @Ethan. It should work in lessons and reviews, but I only tested it with a few reviews.

General Script Installation Instructions

Known conflict:
If you’re also using WaniKani Mistake Delay, make sure that “The Meaning of 六 is roku” has a lower number in Tampermonkey (higher up in the list when sorted by number).
¹ I already know that tomorrow I will regret choosing such a silly name, but now, at 3:45 am, it seems like a good idea

EDIT: Wait - did I misinterpret the excessive flagging in this thread? Was it all part of “The Competition”? :stuck_out_tongue:

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If anyone (with scripting experience) is interested in adding a feature to [Double-Check] to catch reading-instead-of-meaning errors, I’d be happy to merge the changes and post an update. I would implement the changes myself if I had time.

The check for reading-instead-of-meaning (or visa versa) would go in the 'first_submit' section of the script. I think you’d just need to call the following line twice:

answer = old_answer_checker(qtype, $("#user-response").val());

And just change the qtype (i.e. question type) in between the two calls, and see if the answer comes back as correct after changing the qtype. Then add a new message to the set_answer_state() function to tell the user what happened.

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Lots of useful replies here. The way I fixed the problem for myself for me is this:
image

Courtesy of

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