The kanji/vocab explanations are just too long. Sometimes there are like 3 or 4 sentences to describe something that could be done in one sentence, and for me it’s pretty difficult to read three or 4 sentences of something and try to remember it, it would be significantly easier if it were just short. I know that I can add my own meanings, but it isn’t as effective, I would like to be able to remove the pre existing explanations altogether.
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In general, I agree with you. After a while I got into the habit of just scanning through the explanations because they’re too long. It hasn’t really affected me negatively, though.
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I agree and disagree. I normally scan through the explanations on first reading like
@pIantron, but then again sometimes I find myself going back to re-read the extra details to nudge my imagination if I feel like need to. In any case, I like having the option to do so.
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I’m in the disagree camp. When there are four different words for “judge” or “condition”, the more explanation that there is to distinguish usage/nuance/meaning, the better!
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Well my problem isn’t when it’s helping to clarify the differences, it’s when they add completely pointless shit that has nothing to do with the meaning.
I mean look at the meaning mnemonic for “Morally Good”: “A sheep loses its horns on the ground so it picks them up in his mouth to take them to a morally good doctor who is good enough to attach them back onto his head. This poor sheep lost his horns and now feels quite sad. Sheep don’t have hands, so the sheep had to pick the horns up off the ground with his mouth. An evil doctor would just murder the sheep and steal his horns, so the sheep must find a morally good doctor to reaffix them.” There’s no way I’m gonna be able to stop and read all this when I’m doing reviews. And if I skim it I’m not going to retain it. You could turn this into one sentence easy enough.
You’re reading this during reviews? One would think during reviews you wouldn’t be doing any reading of English at all.
I literally only ever see the explanations during lessons and if I happen to fail a certain item a lot of times. If I’ve just forgotten it I’ll open the info page just to get the reading/meaning but not to read the entire story again.
I mean, that’s what your lesson time is for, right?
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I’m in the agree and disagree camp. 
The length of explanations can also get on my nerves, but I realize I do retain things a bit better if I take my time when learning to really read the explanations.
For me personally, it’s not like I’m expecting myself to remember a ten sentence menmonic like in your sheep example - but if I focussed on reading that blurb when learning the kanji/vocab, it gives me more possible methods of jarring the memory.
If I make my own, one-sentence mnemonic and tell myself to remember it whole: I have nothing to go on if I forget that short sentence. If I’m fuzzy on “Morally Good” and I read that menemonic well upon learning, I’m more likely to sit there going “Yeah, it was something about losing a horn. And finding a doctor? Because the sheep has no hands…? Hmm… A doctor… No! A morrally good doctor! Morrally good!”
It’s unfortunately quite impossible to make a learning system that is perfect for everyone, so perhaps the longer mnemonic system is less up your alley.
There is of course always the option of noting down any mnemonics that work better for you whenever you think of them. There is a user script that is no longer supported by the creator, and you might have to read through the thread for fixes if you have difficulty (I saw that Ad Block can interfere with it) but there is a user script that adds Kanji Damage Mnemonics. That way you can have other mnemonics to read through when learning that will possibly resonate more with you.
Good luck!
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I think the explanations are too short. Often I do lessons and I anticipate long, crazy, memorable stories, like the one for “Morally Good” kanji quoted above, but some explanations are just one or two sentences! I feel very disappointed every time I encounter such short mnemonics.
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Yeah this is more my issue as well. And it always seems to happen on the really vague vocab words like the dozen “action” words.
作用: When you make a task you’re looking for a certain action and/or effect! What task can you make right now to get the effect of learning more kanji?
行動: When you go to move you’re actually making an action. It’s these behaviors when you go and move that determine what people think about you.
Maybe it’s just me but these are too abstract for me to get a good intuitive handle on so they’ve been major leeches for me.
I’d also like to call out those mnemonics that basically just say the word is the same as the kanji… but then don’t accept the kanji meaning.
ex. 期間: A period of time interval is still a period or interval of time.
Unaccepted responses by default include: period of time, time interval, time period, interval of time.
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作動 is “something running”, like a camera.
防犯カメラ作動中
行動 is when you take action.
彼女は行動力がすごい
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In the disagreement camp as well. The extra stuff in the example you provided makes a more solid mental image and helps me remember better.
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This is one of those things where some people will prefer a more detailed description, while others will get the visual image right away.
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Ohhh, I think I was confused. I thought you meant the meaning tab. For example, the vocab steam has the meaning:
“Hot water’s energy isn’t the hot water itself, it’s what comes out of it (when it’s boiling, for example). This is the steam and vapor.”
Steam is a pretty concrete term, so it’s fine to have a one-sentence explanation, but they can be extremely ambiguous for more conceptual vocab like “join” or “take”.
Agreed. Often times I just head over to Kanji Koohii and copy their explanations, they are much simpler and punchier. Either that or I just make my own (via the “Memory Palace” method) and insert in the note section.
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Kanjidamage is also a good source for funny mnemonics. I got the script that adds them to the lesson page.
What? You read english when you need help for the reviews…
I guess we just have different learning styles. For me, I take the time during lessons to read all of the mnemonics rather than just skimming them. Then, if I forget the word during a review I just glance at the meaning/reading to remind myself of the story. For me, just the right answer is enough to remind me of the mnemonic, but that might be because of the time I take during the lesson period.
Other than that, I’ll just short term memory the answer until the end of my review period and then, once all my reviews are done, I’ll re-read the mnemonics for whatever words gave me an exceptional amount of trouble. It seems better/more efficient than just relying on short term memory to get me through the lesson period and then needing to do all the work again anyway during my reviews.
But, the wonder of a tool like this is we can use it however we like, sorry to assume.
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Well that doesn’t really work for me. I might read the mnemonic multiple times for a lesson, but I’ll completely forget it, and when reviews come I can’t waste time reading the entire short paragraph about it multiple times again and trying to retain it.
Hmm interesting. In that case, I wonder if there would be a way to have a long initial mnemonic during lessons and a shorter one (~1 sentence) during reviews to handle your situation.
I don’t really see it happening, but that might be a nice feature to have.