Drawings proposal and confusion about kanji vs. vocab readings

[Achilleus]

@pm215

PS: I would personally recommend doing kanji alongside grammar – you’ll get to a point of being able to usefully work with the language and have the different things you’re learning reinforce each other much faster that way than if you try to do a lot of up front kanji study before everything else.

I don’t know, my studying method is quite different from what I assume is how most of you folks do. I do reviews at least once a day, lessons at a slower pace since I can’t remember too many concepts at once. Anyway I am really taking my time with this with no deadlines planned whatsoever, since I’m learning on my own and WK is really my only tool for kanji learning. So I’m not sure I want to do things the way you suggest.

[Achilleus]

@dianarz

I’d also recommend trying different things and finding what works best for you. I would not be surprised if after trying multiple things you came back to WK.

What would you recommend using beside WK? Of course, always in the freeware side of things, since I have yet to decide if I’ll buy WK’s premium package.

[Appleslicer93]

Free

https://torii-srs.com/
KameSame.com

Japanese dictionary and spaced repetition system – jpdb

Not Free

bunpro.jp

I would do wanikani up to level 10 just to get a good base and then switch completely to kamesame, and jpdb, which is what I’m doing myself. Also you need a good dictionary, I like Takoboto (free) the best.

[morteASD]

Let’s take an example:

1. 見 - standalone kanji, meaning “view”, “outlook”
2. 見物 - kanji compound: “sightseeing”, “watching”, etc.
3. 見る - kanji + okurigana: “to see”, “to look”, etc.

Number 1 on it’s own is not a word. You can’t for example say 見【けん】です and expect to be understood.

@Achilleus

Take 大した for example. Since kanji with okurigana are supposed to use the kun’ reading it should be pronounced おおした, instead it uses the on’ たい.

I think this is a bit of backwards thinking. First, there is no hard rule they are supposed to use the kun reading. 大した is read たいした not because how 大 is “supposed” to be read, but because たいした is a word and おおした isn’t. Remember that the spoken language came (mostly; simplifying here but you get the gist) first.

[pm215]

@Achilleus

I don’t know, my studying method is quite different from what I assume is how most of you folks do. I do reviews at least once a day, lessons at a slower pace since I can’t remember too many concepts at once. Anyway I am really taking my time with this with no deadlines planned whatsoever, since I’m learning on my own and WK is really my only tool for kanji learning. So I’m not sure I want to do things the way you suggest.

That sounds fairly normal to me, judging by what I read here on the forums. Some people speed-run but mostly people try to find and stick to a manageable pace.

My point is really that especially if you’re going slowly with WK, if you do nothing but WK then that could be years of nothing but SRS reviews, and a lot of it will either be of no use for a long time or else you’ll forget it because you don’t ever use it. More variety is more interesting, and usually people want to learn Japanese for some other reason than because they like doing flashcard reviews, so it’s more motivating to order your studies so you’re making progress towards doing a little bit of whatever you want to do with the language sooner. There is a lot to the language that is not kanji.

[rachiewru]

@dianarz

It’s hard to understand that some things just are, especially because people like to think languages are logical structures when they are not.

This this this! Whenever there is a rule, there is usually some kind of exception (or a bunch of them!) to be learnt alongside it

And, as @pm215 said, WK often teaches you exceptions almost immediately after the common or standard readings, because it wants you to acquire a good sense of how that kanji might appear in the wild.

@Achilleus : Something that might be helpful is to download the userscript that tells you whether the review is asking you to give the kun or on reading (link below). I LOVE this userscript, because as well as removing any frustration or guesswork during reviews, it has also really helped my brain to distinguish kun’yomi and on’yomi over time and to better understand what functions they serve.

[Userscript] WK Custom Review Question (KunOn+) (2023 version)

This is a third-party script/app and is not created by the WaniKani team. By using this, you understand that it can stop working at any time or be discontinued indefinitely. A fix of New version of KunOn script: WK Custom Review Question (KunOn+) to work with the new website UI. [Kanji On'yomi]

Japanese prompts

[音読み] [訓読み]

WK Open Framework should be installed and put before this script, to enable Settings dialog and saving of Settings. Features ON’YOMI and kun’yomi in ‘en’ mo…

[gijsc1]

@Achilleus

there are no drawings or sketches to go with the mnemonics.

I am using this userscript to add image based mnemonics:

New volunteer project: We're using AI to create mnemonic images for every radical, kanji, vocabulary. Come join us!

A few weeks ago, Mo-Kanji posted about using Midjourney to generate mnemonic images for WaniKani using AI. We’re taking this concept to the next level with a volunteer project where we plan to use AI to generate images for every radical, kanji, and vocabulary on WaniKani. Install: Userscript to view mnemonic images This script embeds them in WK pages, like this: [image] Our mnemonic image embedded by our userscript into the page for 業 (Business). I made this one with DALL-E 2. [image] We…

[Kazzeon]

Hey, I did WK by itself for a while and it worked out perfectly fine, just took more time obviously, and there were a lot of things that didn’t click properly until later when I had all the pieces.

That said, I don’t remember asking myself too many questions, I was just a memorizing machine for weird symbols, and it was fun.

Then when I got into the grammar is when I worried about what something being intransitive meant, which word is more common, etc.

[mgrice]

There is a thread here that addresses that topic.

Whats the difference between kanji reading and vocab reading

In most cases, kanji reading asks for the on’yomi and vocab reading for a single kanji asks for the kun’yomi. The on’yomi is the Chinese reading, and the reading you’ll use generally when you find several kanji together, while the kun’yomi is the Japanese reading, and one you’ll use more often when a kanji is alone. That’s why, for example, 山 is read サン on the kanji reading (on’yomi), but やま on the vocabulary reading (kun’yomi). Yet if you find 火山 you read it かざん, using the on’yomi. In this cas…

[mgrice]

@rachiewru

This this this! Whenever there is a rule, there is usually some kind of exception (or a bunch of them!) to be learnt alongside it

Just like most other languages as well. In English we learn that we make something plural by adding an “s”. One apple, two apples. One dog, two dogs. One day, two days. Hey, I got this!. One bus, two buss. Nope, that would be two buses. One goose, two gooses. Nope that would be two geese. One moose, two mooses… wait you are not going to trick me this time, two meese. Nope, that would be two moose. Ox/oxen. Phenomenon/phenomena. What was the “rule” again? My head hurts.

Which makes me remember this old routine.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WKNV3R1NhIk

[WeebPotato]

@mgrice

Just like most other languages as well. In English we learn that we make something plural by adding an “s”. One apple, two apples. One dog, two dogs. One day, two days. Hey, I got this!. One bus, two buss. Nope, that would be two buses. One goose, two gooses. Nope that would be two geese. One moose, two mooses… wait you are not going to trick me this time, two meese. Nope, that would be two moose. Ox/oxen. Phenomenon/phenomena. What was the “rule” again? My head hurts.

A TL:DR of this is that natural languages are not programming languages. There are rules, but those rules are not ironclad.

[Aikibujin]

Here is a more up to date version:

Visual WK Mnemonics

Welcome to Visual WK Mnemonics ก็็็็็็็็็็็็็ʕ•͡ᴥ•ʔ ก้้้้้้้้้้้ New: You can find the latest visuals at the end of this post The point of this thread is to use visual aids of any kind to remember the Kanji. This is a remake of the previous thread I did based on the same thing. A while back I restarted my account from level 1, after lapsing for a few months in WK. I found that I remembered the Kanji that I made pics for so much bet…

[Mandopicker]

@Achilleus

Since kanji with okurigana are supposed to use the kun’ reading

There are exceptions to this so it is not always true. WK will tell you when they use the on readings. Some even has the kun reading for one kanji and the on reading for another…makes it very confusing sometimes.

[ekg]

Thanks! ^>^

[Achilleus]

Unfortunately I cannot install those add-ons since I’m using Chrome on mobile… If I ever find myself using WK on my desktop I’ll think about it.

As for the rest, thanks very much to y’all for the precious explanations, insight and tips. I think I have a deeper understanding now about how the whole thing goes. I think it’s just a matter of keeping focused while studying and do not ever assume anything.

@pm215

My point is really that especially if you’re going slowly with WK, if you do nothing but WK then that could be years of nothing but SRS reviews, and a lot of it will either be of no use for a long time or else you’ll forget it because you don’t ever use it. More variety is more interesting, and usually people want to learn Japanese for some other reason than because they like doing flashcard reviews, so it’s more motivating to order your studies so you’re making progress towards doing a little bit of whatever you want to do with the language sooner. There is a lot to the language that is not kanji.

I’m considering the idea… Guess I’ll check how things look after level 2 and have a start at grammar too. Do you advise Tofugu’s grammar or maybe some other option?

[pm215]

@Achilleus

Guess I’ll check how things look after level 2 and have a start at grammar too. Do you advise Tofugu’s grammar or maybe some other option?

Tofugu’s grammar articles are generally really good but AIUI they don’t form a coherent course or progression, so I feel they’re more useful as reference or a second take on something you don’t understand in your textbook.

Where to start depends a bit on your preferences. Personally I went the textbook route – after all they’re designed as an all-in-one curated path to teach you basic Japanese. The Tofugu roundup of beginner Japanese textbooks is a decent summary of your options there. If you don’t get on with textbooks there are some more SRS-style apps like Bunpro or MaruMori. I have no experience with those but if you use the forum search feature I think you should be able to find some discussion of those. There is also a “dive into native material super-early with an e-reader set up to do hover-over dictionary lookups and one click creation of SRS vocab cards” path that some people like (but which is a bit ‘hard-core’ as a learning system). If cost is an issue there are also free resources, but you’re likely to find the trade-off is having to do more research to find them and look in more places to find information to fill in gaps.

[Myria]

@pm215

free resources

I still like Tae Kim as a free comprehensive introduction to Japanese grammar.

[Gabun]

Which is what makes natural languages so beautiful! They are like the relationships with people. Imagine if our relationships were robotic, we would be so insufferable and boring. That’s why I love studying Japanese or any language, it is the core of a people, and shows little parts of how that people function relationally!