And at the same time, you can get on just fine in the US without knowing any baseball jargon, and without giving baseball rules and vocab any time while learning English. Sure, you might not understand some vernacular expressions having to do with the sport, but it is not a big deal at all, I feel.
Also, I think the main problem with these specific words is they might be presented by WaniKani from a US point of view, where they expect you to be familiar with the English terms and/or with baseball rules (or at least to have heard them before). In reality a lot of people using WK are international and not at all familiar with baseball… You basically have to learn the terms in two languages simultaneously.
I guess I just don’t see it as a big deal. Like I alluded to in another comment there are plenty of terms I’ve come across on WK that I have never had any exposure to before. Filial piety, or sumo wrestling terms, or the concept of Buddhist “pure land” or whatever else.
Learning a new concept in English as well as its corresponding Japanese just seems comparatively trivial in the grand scheme of things while learning this language.
I’m not interested in baseball either but baseball is a large part of the Japanese life, it’s not a US point of view. Baseball is everywhere in Japan and a lot Japanese ppl are crazy about it. There’s a good chance if you ever talk with a Japanese person or go visit/live in Japan that you encounter baseball terms.
Though examples like this get into the “Well is wanikani a vocab app or a kanji app?” Because if it’s purely for kanji then having weird or obscure words are par for the course since some kanji and/or their readings are not commonly used so rather rare expressions or specialized vocabulary are taught. But if it’s a combo vocab and kanji then yes they should avoid such specific words imho.
Either way, I learned JP in college and you also learn a lot of weird vocab that you don’t care about or will hardly ever see so people should just go with it or never learn the vocab they don’t like when they do lessons on WK since you don’t need them to get to the next lvl anyway
Yeah it’s you can ignore it, if you have a script to reorder. Not everyone wants to install a script. To be honest I am slightly AGAINST the ability to skip words. If I was king of wanikani it would be purely a kanji app with each vocabulary selected to teach you something specific about the kanji whether a meaning or reading. But it’s not that so hence the slightly against skipping since a not small portion of the vocabulary are unclear in their purpose to teach kanji other than be filler.
I didn’t learn Japanese in college, I am learning it in Japan over 11 long years of halfhearted study and fun interactions with my family and work and the NPCs that populate my life.
I honestly don’t know how you’d get by if you thought something like ちじょう and じしょう sounded the same.
I think this may be the disconnect you’re having.
The WK team is well aware that their platform isn’t for everyone and that it won’t work in all the ways that people want.
One one side you have people clamoring for more vocab and more kanji and on the other you have people who don’t want it at all. While this thread has a lot of replies, it’s only one thread.
The people who want more content post several threads every month and have done so for as long as I’ve been here. The WK team has been catering to that majority while being fully aware that a number of users won’t like it.
I’ve lived in Japan for 4 years and I’ve never talked about baseball with anyone. Even if I ever do some day, I highly doubt they will talk so specifically about special plays/strategies with me if they know I’m not a big baseball fan. I also know a lot of Japanese people who have no interest in baseball. I agree 100% that it’s unnecessary vocab.
What I simply don’t understand is that many who criticize WK do not accept scripts and demand it should be a built in standard. Meaning there mostly ARE solutions to their complaints, they just don’t accept them. I don’t know WK’s budget, but i feel like they built a system they deemed useful and especially a system they deemed serviceable with what programmers they have, so anything else the users want added - “here’s the API, have fun” - WK probably.
API maintenance is probably a big part of their workload but it also provides the most leverage for customizing the system. I can see why that’s their solution to the problem.
I guess one could argue that they are unable/unwilling to install scripts. Granted I trust the wanikani users but it can be a bit risky installing scripts on your browser. I think the argument is that these features should be standard rather than by users who may or may not have the best of intentions. Plus they could easily abandon their script and it become useless. A native feature wouldn’t be like this.
So while I agree that yes, if you want such and such functionality a simple solution is to install a script, but I also see the side of native implementation for safety and consistent functionality.
I don’t use scripts either. I use whatever extra functionality I get from the Tsurukame app on IOS. If I have to do a lesson or a review on my browser then I just do it normally.
Even counting the most popular features among the most popular scripts, I don’t think you could make the argument that those features would be universally applicable to the entire user base.
I’d even wager that the vast majority of users don’t even know, let alone use, the built in features of WK, such as simple lesson ordering or batch sizing.
And given the cost of implementation, they get more out of putting that effort towards the API than catering to the small number of users who won’t install scripts.
Edit: Actually there is one feature that I think should be baseline, and that’s the ability to mark an answer correct. But if you think this topic is divisive, the ones on that feature have gotten pretty heated. And WK have specifically said they’d never implement that function.
Well I would say additionally functionality could be optional. Similar to the flaming durtles. It’s not like if functionality was added that it would be mandatory. As for apps, fair enough I myself using flaming durtles typically. I use scripts too since I am often on my computer as well. (though usually when I do reviews on my computer it’s because I am putting off other work hahahaha)
No idea how you’ve achieved to avoid baseball in 4 years of Japan.
I’ve seen it in the first 5 days of my first trip to Japan (and many times after that).
I do think it’s unnecessary as well (I even wrote an email to the staff to complain about it so…), I was just pointing out the fact that it’s inaccurate to say baseball vocab comes from a US point of view. Whether you experienced it or not, baseball is big in Japan (some people even consider it as the national sport and it’s often ranked #1 in public’s favorite sports surveys) and I can see where they were coming from when they added the terms to WK.
-still hate it though-
That is true. I think wanikani is probably taking “if it aint broke don’t fix it” kinda approach which might be unnerving to some people in this weekly update kind of world. I mean wanikani is a business so unless there was a pressing monetary reason I highly doubt we would see significant resources devoted to large changes.
Baseball is also old enough that it was popular even through the war era and anti-western sentiment. This is why there are lots of kanji compounds for baseball in the first place. If it was new (to Japan) and only popular in the west, all the terms would be katakana only.
I would not. There is no question about the order. WK came first. People know what they sign up for. People are evidently content enough with the current feature set as to not leave the program or use scripts.
I don’t WK has any responsibility to improve either. You pay for the system as is.
