Other users shouldn’t be punished for your inability to use a feature properly.
Paying customer going away because of the lack of that feature should be considered as well. I am also a paying customer.
I finally switched to a third party app with an undo and I don’t find myself cheating more than before. I speak the answer to myself I press to enter and I only mark as Correct if I clearly mistyped.
Any actual cheating I do is stuff I was doing already on the real web version (looking up answers or adding a skip synonym for radicals because I have no desire to have my progress gated by WK’s radicals since I use dictionary radicals and my own mnemonics for the most part)
To be honest the FAQ is condescending in multiple places. I almost didn’t subscribe just because of that. The only reason I decided to sub anyway is that with 2 kids under 3 I don’t have the time to be messing with Anki or Koohi and other alternatives that require more effort than just using WK.
Thankfully WK as a product has otherwise been great for me and I’ve accepted that Tsukurame will have read/write access even though I really don’t like the idea of giving a 3rd party app more than just read access.
it’s so cute people still think wk actually listens to suggestions…
all one has to do is review the forums… actions speak way louder than any empty or broken promises made… eto…
it’s ok though only 17 more days now …
That is exactly how I felt when I first started WK (including downloading any userscript even with just read access).
Then after a year of struggling with typos, I too:
And I was okay with this because I felt I had the fortitude to not cheat, i.e., ONLY typos, not ‘Oh, I actually knew that…’ And all was well, until…
I came up with a ‘new’ use of that UNDO button. ALL OF US in our native language will read anything without giving any thought about definitions, sentence structure, pronunciations, etc. I would think that is what we would like to achieve in Japanese as well; perhaps NOT to the point of our native language, but at least to the point where we’re NOT saying to ourselves - hmmm, I know that word, what was it? How do I pronounce it?
I’m NOT ready for reading Japanese yet because of those problems, even with the simplest readings. So I decided that I NEED to get to where I can just see a kanji and know what it means and how to say it so I can read without it being a mental burden and a discouraging event!
Hence, thanks to the UNDO button, when I see a kanji, if I can, I’ll just type what I think the meaning/pronunciation is, and if I’m right, great. But if I’m wrong, then I’ll go into my…hmmm what was that…what was the mnemonic…how did that mnemonic tie back to the definition/pronunciation…and if I can then recall the correct answer, I’ll undo and correct it. But if I can’t, then it’s just WRONG and I move on.
Just food for thought for anyone who thinks they might want to try this as well 
You’re putting the cart before the horse.
The way you learn a language is focusing primarily (if not only) on grammar till you reach ~B2 level of understanding it, then you switch to mastering comprehension (listening and/or reading), then if you feel like it switch to improving production (writing/speaking). What you are trying to do, from early on to be able to immediately recall meanings/readings etc. is something you will naturally pick up as you master comprehension, there is no need to put effort into it early on - it will just delay you in the long run. It’s like trying to learn calculus as you are just learning multiplication.
My AP French class had students who spent years learning primarily grammar. Like most high school students, they could barely understand anything not sanitized for a school setting.
My mother hasn’t taken a grammar course in most languages, yet she (a native Portuguese speaker) speaks English, Spanish, and French fluently enough that while she makes occasional grammatical mistakes there is no denying she has a high degree of comprehension.
There are multiple paths to learning a language.
I actually changed Tsukurame to always have the reading first so I could do exactly that, and I only use mnemonics if I struggle. Otherwise I try to see if I can just know immediately and it’s been great!
PS: I would encourage you to not wait to read. Just open up a page and try your best. Some words you’ll recognize instantly, some you won’t. But then you’ll see them on WK and you’ll recognize them faster the next time. Feedback loop. Just gotta learn to view it as a progression homework rather than a test of mastery.
Learning a language in a class is the opposite of what I mean.
In a class setting you waste your time with studying for pointless tests that require you to spend energy on a lot of stuff that’s not understanding grammar related. Which is also why most language classes are useless.
The B2 threshold is not something I came up with, it has serious research backing it up. Why you want to get a B2 level of grammar understanding is that this is what unlocks mastering comprehension for you, which in turns is what unlocks fluency. Everything else is a more inefficient, harder and more frustrating way of learning a language (again, this is not my take, its what the research points to).
Well, rather my experience has been backed by the research I later was taught in uni is what I should say. Without a way to unlock the sentence rank-level relationships in a language you’re not learning anything, and the only thing that does that in a meaningful way is grammar, which is what I painfully found out back in the day of my first Latin exam. Having a dictionary at hand and knowing the meaning of all words helped me exactly 0 with translating complex sentences with nuanced and subtle meanings. But even basic grammar makes texts more understandable than 100% vocabulary knowledge. Things like in a vacuum recalling the meaning of stuff, or by heart knowing how to conjugate forms is entirely useless for this. Those come easy once you’re on your comprehension stage of learning, the hard part is getting there and not wasting precious time as a beginner on stuff that won’t help you advance and might burn you out early.
I agree that different people will adapt their learning to suit them individually, but I also don’t buy that all approaches are made equal. Most are dead ends as we all know by how many start learning a language, and how many actually succeed. Though imo things tends to boil down to having the right priority of what you learn when rather than anything else.
To be clear, I’m not denying any of that. Having basic grammar is important - though how one goes about acquiring that basic grammar can vary.
But one does not have to primarily focus on that before learning to read their kanji by sight. People can do a gradual approach with both. So if someone wants the ability to mark things as correct on WK as a means to adjust how they learn one skill does not prevent them from also learning grammar to B2 as well. Having instant access to vocabulary means you can put more of the brain focus on learning that grammar. They can complement each other.
In general I also don’t disagree with anything you are saying, the big problem imo is that most people are in a way making uninformed decisions about their language learning journey, which is not their fault as they are beginners, and there is a lot of bad info out there, most if it is coming from supposed “authorities”. Meaning they think if they focus on X now it will help them for Y goal, but often times that’s not the case. If someone picks production early because they will need to be speaking in three months for their work trip to Japan - that’s fine, but if they spend time on production when they have no external criteria or deadline, and just have a general “fluency” goal, spending time on production early is actively counter-productive to their goals. So its a matter of knowing what you are doing and to what ends that’s helping you or not, and most beginners are heavily led astray on this point, again by no fault of their own. Stuff like courses, JLPT, most YouTubers and other online sources etc. are especially bad for this.
And other users should not be forced to deal with a feature we don’t want because of your inability to type properly.
I think the key difference comes from a willingness to compromise. There are many different paying customers here and it’s obviously not going to be realistic to make everyone happy. But, that is where compromise is important.
Arguing for something to not exist versus an optional setting turned off and not visible by default that you do not need to use is a refusal to compromise.
In your case, there exists a world where nobody uses the feature whether they like it or not. In the other case, there still exists a world where you don’t use it but others can, which is more compromising.
If simply the optional existence of such a feature is enough for you to leave the service, then there are other things to consider.
I could say well what about the people who have already left the service because of the lack of this optional feature, or people who do not subscribe to it because there is no such option? It kind of goes both ways, and I guess from a business and paying customer perspective, you would have to do a poll or something to see what the numbers are for people that want this option or not. Then you could actually see how much each person’s payment is worth in the long run.
My initial guess is that more people would be open to the idea of a more customizable and tailored environment for their personal learning needs. I think the existence of so many userscripts and third party add ons, that I think a seemingly majority of users use, kind of proves this. And the Wanikani service itself allows for them to be talked about and promoted on the forums.
I’m actually curious what percentage of users only use vanilla Wanikani. And mind you this is all coming from someone who actually does only use vanilla Wanikani, me lol.
And what confuses me a little is this idea of having a lack of trust in yourself or stating that you will beyond a doubt abuse it.
If you truly can’t keep yourself from opening the settings, digging through them to find the “add undo button” setting, reading a red warning label saying how in some cases it might sabotage your learning so use at your own risk, and then choosing to turn it on anyways, then what’s stopping you right now from doing similar things like this?
You can similarly go right now and add an undo button userscript or add on. You can add the synonym “skip” to every item and abuse it on kanji and vocabulary you feel like you really know but just can’t remember the English for. You can even just press the refresh web page button on the top of your screen to not count mistakes. But, these things are resistable and an optional hidden setting is not?
I think another important difference which I am basing my argument in large part on is the fact that plenty of other services exist which have things such as an undo or “oops I made a typo” option. I am not saying that no one should have access to those things; I am saying that I do not want it present in the service I specifically chose because it was not available.
It’s the same as if I knew I had a problem with junk food. So I found an apartment complex with rules in place to restrict access to the kind of junk food I have an issue with. I moved in, I’m getting healthier, but people start complaining about the rule. Well, sure, it’s not an issue for everyone, and some people actually find having access to these foods improves their lives; but it is an issue for me, and part of the reason I’m here instead of somewhere else is because of these restrictions.
There is actually a simple and specific reason I have a problem with this and none the other things you mention: it does not always feel like cheating in the moment to abuse this. I make typos. I think everyone does, and so it is a reasonable sounding thing to have an option to ignore them. The problem comes from the fact that I would probably end up using it when I should not, because from past experience I know there will be cases where I would type in a wrong answer, get it wrong, look at the explanation, and if I’m not extremely careful I would sometimes convince myself I did not actually make a mistake, it was actually just a typo. “I knew it was actually a long vowel”, for instance. In some cases, it would be just a typo; in others, it would be a sign I actually do not know the word well enough to recall it, but merely well enough to recognize it when I see it. I find that unless I slow down a lot, the two are very easy to mix up.
User scripts are fine because I just flat out don’t use them, and I know I do not want to use them for a number of reasons; adding “skip” as a synonym is an admission I do not know the answer, and so I won’t do it because I am trying to learn kanji and that would clearly undermine my goal; and likewise, refreshing the browser to get rid of mistakes is not something I need to worry about doing because psychologically I find that there is a huge difference between hitting the “oops, I made a typo” button and a refresh to clear mistakes; especially because it would also typically clear honest mistakes, and not just typos.
As for the suggestion of making it optional, I’m pretty sure I would keep it off most of the time, but that I would not always keep it off. I have a lot of master reviews coming, and so I have far more reviews than I would consider ideal for the next little while. I think I would be tempted to turn on the option to mark things as a typo while this is happening, because if I am making well over a hundred reviews a day I can be confident that I will make at least one typo, and probably more, so it makes sense to turn the feature on, at least temporarily, right?
The problem with the “oops, I made a typo” option that makes it so dangerous for me is that it has enough of a use case that I would be tempted to use it, a potential for abuse, and I cannot always tell when I am abusing it in the moment. This is why I am saying I do not want it even as an optional feature, unless it was quite hard to turn on: as long as it does not exist I do not have to expend any willpower to keep it off, while the moment it exists as an option feature I am going to be tempted to turn it on at the precise times I most need to turn it off.
I’d like to jump in here with support for this, and another issue I see. A lot of people do not really know what their goal is, especially for people who are learning their first non-native language.
What exactly counts as “fluency”? Is it the ability to read the language as well as a native speaker? Does it mean having the ability to write letters in it? Or is the goal to be able to go to a coffeeshop and talk with someone in the language? Or maybe it means to be able to conduct business in it, a highly formal mixture of reading, writing, and speaking? Or is it the ability to listen to radio and podcasts? Or is it something else entirely?
These are all possible goals for “fluency”. Some people might not settle until they have all of them, but everyone has to start somewhere, and I would bet good money that a lot of people learning any language would benefit a lot from figuring out what their priorities are and focusing on those first.
If we include people who don’t want to use the feature and are currently able to use their willpower to stop themselves from installing a script or an app, then we can assume that those can be a baseline for acceptable difficulty. I don’t use user scripts because now I have Tsukurame, which required:
- Searching in App Store
- Download
- Open app
- Generate token
- Paste token to log in
- Locate setting
- turn on setting
So that’s 7 steps. If there was an optional button but it required going through 7+ different steps (somehow) to turn on, would that be considered comparably difficult enough that they would also be able to use their willpower to stop themselves from turning it on?
Fair enough, thank you for clarifying! I appreciate your perspective.
For the record, I’m just genuinely interested to hear your side and thoughts on this topic, so it’s not my intention to be critical of you or change your mind.
I respect your choices and I’m fine with keeping things the way they are now, since I can undo my typos and stuff other ways anyhow.
I think the least intrusive/tempting way to do it would be to not even have an undo button visible or anywhere on your screen in the first place by default. So choosing to enable it in the settings would be almost just like adding an extension or add on to your browser.
But either way, I totally understand what you are trying to say, and it really resonates with me personally through my dieting example lol.
I’m fine with leaving things the way they are now, since both of us will continue to use the service and pursue our japanese language goals together. 頑張って!
It would be an option that you ignore, you like you can ignore user scripts.
I’ll be perfectly fine with it being opt in if that helps some.
I absolutely agree with this. I rage too much when using the phone for my reviews. I switched to PC to do reviews and it was night and day difference. I also use my iPad on occasion and even that is better than the phone. Wish there was a typo option.
Oddly enough, this is one of the main reasons why I’m all for having more features and flexibility.
I have thought about my goals very deeply as well as the strategies that work and get the best results for me. I have a very clear and carefully put together timeline that revolves around several other sources of learning and practicing. And it’s all grounded in practicality and necessity of me acquiring complete fluency as I am settling in Tokyo at the moment. And it’s coming from someone who has had to learn 6 languages before, making this my seventh.
Because I have very clear and defined priorities, I don’t even acknowledge the idea of “cheating” since I know exactly what I need to do and I’m fully committed to succeeding. I have no reason to think about abusing anything or falling victim to some kinds of temptations. My goals and mindset are locked in.
I really appreciate all the work and effort that was put into Wanikani. I quite like how it’s organized in general and I would like to have a scheduled system that keeps me progressing and reviewing Kanji and Vocabulary on the side for a 1 year period. I like being held accountable to review on here for a year before I move on to something else.
My only issue is that I don’t need to be held hostage waiting for progress because I wrote “word choice” instead of “choice of words” in the definition of a vocabulary word. And the request is completely reasonable, just a setting hidden in the deepest depths of this service’s menus that I can enable to reach my goals more efficiently and comfortably.
Once again, I have my own ways of getting around this, and this setting might never be added, but it would be very much appreciated lol. Either way, I’m staying subbed until I get to level 60 in a year, so it is what it is.
Lastly, I’d argue that wouldn’t someone who actually deeply, carefully, and thoughtfully setup up strong goals and committed to reaching them be the last person to consider sabotaging and failing themselves? Why would the simple existence of more features completely break their personal accountability and discipline? If that’s all it took for them to completely crumble, I’d kind of question their priorities.
If your shortsighted goal is to simply get lvl60, then sure, you could cheat that. But, if your priority and focus is on learning the language, what could you possibly cheat to reach that?
In other words, if your goal is to actually learn the language, the mere notion of cheating or abusing something shouldn’t even exist in your mind.
this! i agree with ya, i mean i DONT have paid wk nor hav i paid for bunpro but like i don’t want/cannt get apks on this laptop since its NOT mine. of course i have my own personal laptop but 1 no access right now 2 i shouldn’t have to get a whole script/apk for a basic feature, i mean im sure downloading the apk or like idk running Linux is not hard but it just feels more like a waste of time to have to spend time doing that.
happens to me ALL the time. 水 oh you put mizu? wrong. 水 oh you put sui? wrong it was mizu this time. LIKE HUH? if i know both of the meanings, cant remember which is vocab versus kanji. spitball and then bam im wrong, why should i be punished and then take long and stuck on levels. I’ve been on lvl 02 for around ~260 days. not because its hard, its not. just im lazy and i never do my lessons and when i remember oh yeah! that’s sui! after 2 months later and it turns out they wanted mizu, how is that fair at all?
like brother I know what you want, I just don’t know which one you want. if it was a sentence, that’s different. that’s in context. wanikani is NOT in context its like 人 ‘okay what is this!’ ‘eh, hito or jin’ hey so you put jin and we wanted hito. the AMOUNT of times i get a kanji and only remember 1 reading after month and i put hito and it says ‘nope! we want the vocab reading’ i literally HAVE to google it because i know i remember it but i need a refresher, of course i could use practice mode, but i dont. i literally google it and go ohhh yeaa it was jin.. okay! put it in, get it right and move on with my day because id rather spend time googling it and putting it into a japenese dictorary then get my wk wrong.
thats just crazy imo, if i dont want a script, why should i jump through hoops to get the results i want, the way i want.
exactly. couldntve have said it better 