Concerned with Lessons

Toyger · March 27, 2021, 7:50pm

No, 3 is the actual norm, and rarely is more. Look at the kanji page you will find half has only 3 vocab or less, counting all readings, and those with more usually have vocabs unlocked at later levels. Kanji who give more vocab than 3 at unlock are rare, if any. Yes, some kanji has a good number of vocab, but some I haven’t even unlocked yet at my current level when i looked at random kanji at lvl 21 (has some of the numerous kanji).

If you are fine with 3 vocab, with some different readings, then it works as intended. There are no half dozens at unlock that I know of

No, I have my similar vocabs divided in weeks and months, after failing one but not the other at Guru/master level. I’m not talking hours, or even days.

But honestly, the most important part is to actually do the vocab, late or not. Some try to just do the kanji and think that is enough, just to fail every review later (the vocab does help strengthen the recollection)

I find delaying them even a week from Kanji guru is enough to weaken the recollection for me. The kanji gets strengthened by having the vocab drilled shortly after first guruing it. And then, once both kanji and vocab has moved on to higher areas, they are more likely to stay in long term memory after their exposures.

Andyglue · March 28, 2021, 3:22am

I don’t really care about 0/0 at all. Definitely not slowing down my progress for that. I can’t imagine myself being motivated by losing several days for numbers which only mean you have nothing to do atm. One can get them by just doing lessons at any speed and regularly messing up reviews, thus having 0 or even negative progress. I totally understand people, who are happy about good speed + accuracy though, because that means they are learning fast and well.

Toyger · March 28, 2021, 10:46am

Getting the 0/0 can easily be done without losing speed. Just do all Kanji right away for full speed, then divide the vocab on the days it takes to Guru those Kanji. This is how I did it when going full speed.
And that zero don’t last long, it is just a quick breeder. There is usually more reviews coming next hour, new lessons in later same day.

The 0/0 simply means you aren’t neglecting your vocab or leaving reviews

Andyglue · March 28, 2021, 11:38am

That’s exactly what I was talikng about. 0/0 can happen in pretty much any scenario where you just do your lessons. It can happen if you go slow and fail, or if you go fast and have good accuracy. That’s why it basically indicates nothing besides having no pending lessons and that the last review session was probably less than an hour ago. While being fast and accurate can’t be achieved by failing and stalling, and it can only mean you’re fast and accurate. Which is why I always turn to that to understand how productive my wk activity is.

Toyger · March 28, 2021, 11:56am

It does indicate something. It means you can’t possibly have left past level vocabulary lessons behind, and you are keeping up with your reviews; both very important parts.

Some people du re-order abuse, leave the vocab behind on purpose cause they feel too swamped, yet can’t stop leveling. They end up with several levels worth of vocab left behind, and very often end up resetting their level.
We call this “re-order abuse jail”, as a fun term. And the amount of people who has done it is NOT low!

And many struggle to get zero reviews, cause they come in faster than they can handle. “I haven’t had zero reviews for months!” some say, and that is not good. It is highly recommended to try get zero at least once daily, more if possible, to get to the items on their srs time.

So yes, it indicates a whole lot!
Just cause it CAN be achieved in other ways, doesn’t take away its value for those going fast.

Andyglue · March 28, 2021, 12:19pm

It feels kind of intuitive and natural to me that it’s necessary too keep up with the reviews. I’m surprised anyone would do lessons without being able to get the reviews done. And I don’t use scripts and hate mobile so I avoid using my phone too, except for getting radicals at the start of each lesson. I’m not new to language learning, so I can sometimes make adjustments for myself and break some rules, but also, I see that wk is pretty well designed in terms of material flow, so I don’t feel like putting in a lot of effort for little improvements. I guess I’m in a natural safe mode from the overwhelming situation you described because I dislike doing lessons a lot more than I dislike doing reviews. I’m able to keep track of my pending lessons without having to look at stats and numbers all the time. I could never keep track of my accuracy like that. For some reason I feel like it’s a lot lower than it actually is.

Mrs_Munch · March 28, 2021, 1:30pm

i reccomend 0/0 for people who have built a pile-up of lessons from earlier levels, like the OP here. it can keep you on track without having to understand the intricacies of WK’s level-system ^^

for people who understand how the levelling works, and when which lessons are given to the user, you can easily do it without doing 0/0 ^^

Maulrus · March 28, 2021, 2:28pm

Why are you so heavily focusing on the kanji? The vocabulary is incredibly important as well!

Learning the vocabulary that uses kanji you’rlve learnt helps consolidate that kanji. I would recommend playing catch up on vocab before continuing with new kanji.

Andyglue · March 28, 2021, 3:02pm

To those who can’t figure out how wk works I would recommend just running the default version. Why bother changing something designed by professionals, who did a great job in terms of material flow I might add, if you don’t even understand how it works? It’s like trying to improve a car engine without having any idea how it functions. “I’ll just get rid of a couple of liters of engine oil. Then my car will be lighter and can go faster, right?”

Toyger · March 28, 2021, 4:16pm

Honestly, if you look at the “Lvl 60 Posts” where they tell their story and about their journey, almost all list a whole bunch of scripts they used and recommend. Yes, some have pitfalls and can be abused, but most are super helpful and augments your journey.
I do everything on a computer cause I much prefer my script version.

The creators of WK are very supportive of the scripts.

The best isn’t to not use scripts, but use them right

skatefriday · March 28, 2021, 4:55pm

I use lesson filter to force vocabulary to appear earlier in the cycle. So that I’m reinforcing with the vocabulary earlier than WK’s defaults would have. A lesson session will either be 5 vocabulary or 2 kanji and 3 vocabulary. I rarely do a lesson session of all kanji. Works better for me and I don’t end up 100+ vocabulary words to work through on level n-1 after having leveled up.

Andyglue · March 28, 2021, 5:16pm

Which is exactly why I would strongly recommend anyone to first get a feel and full understanding of how this platform works before changing anything. I’d say it takes a full cycle, up to the point when you have burnt a few things, because you can’t know how burning items will go even if you are 3 months in.

Toyger · March 28, 2021, 5:22pm

And I recommend people come to the forum to ask suggestions and help, and use scripts from lvl 1, cause some are that useful

Here is one that can’t be missused, and honestly should be part of the main program:

Andyglue · March 28, 2021, 5:45pm

Again. Someone might want this script, but I’d rather have my brain figure out this on it’s own to let it sink in more naturally. So I don’t think it should be a part of the main program.
What do you think about a fake radical indicator. Should it be part of the main program?

Toyger · March 28, 2021, 6:02pm

All radicals are made up, so not sure what you even mean by that.
They have no official names even in Japanese.
Sure, some are more widely used, others are completely unique to WaniKani; but none are fake.

Andyglue · March 28, 2021, 6:08pm

That’s not what google says about radicals. And in this situation I think I trust google more.

Toyger · March 28, 2021, 6:08pm

Trust in Google, the worst resource
Unless you got lucky and hit a good resource, that is the worst argument ever!

Yeah, every source and person I’ve ever talked to say opposite.

But since you trust in Google. here you go, Google answers:

I’m done with this conversation. You clearly don’t know what you are talking about.

Andyglue · March 28, 2021, 6:16pm

Of course a random internet person knows better than google. And better than wk staff even, cause even they told me they do use made up radicals when I asked.

Toyger · March 28, 2021, 6:16pm

Did you ask them if there are official radical names? Cause spoilers; There are not!
And look up, I used your trusted Google to answer your question.

BIsTheAnswer · March 28, 2021, 6:55pm

The radical names on WK are not official, what WK refers to as “radicals” are closer to kanji components, but they are not official by any means. Most of them are either real radicals (sometimes with changed names), kanji, or common sub-components of kanji. Using the real radicals isn’t particularly useful for learning kanji, since they’re sometimes hard to use in mnemonics and recognizing the real main radical of a kanji isn’t always easy.

Each kanji only has one true radical, which is a different thing from how WK uses the term radical. Radicals are mostly used for indexing kanji in dictionaries, so they’re not terribly important to know. These radicals do not have official names, but they do have a set of common ways to refer to them, although each source will pick its own term, so the “names” you’ll see listed may vary from resource to resource.