So I’ve been doing my reviews and I’ve noticed that in some of the instances I type the wrong answer it is not because I didn’t know the answer it’s because instead of typing the first idea that jumps into my head I hesitate and type the second one and I don’t understand why.
In some cases I see a verb I know for certain it is intransitive since I see the pattern with the hiragana and all, and for some reason which still eludes me I type the transitive version, while knowing I’m typing the wrong answer.
I was wondering whether any of you experience this hesitation hiccups and if you were able to deal with it or retrain yourself what was your process.
I suspect there is probably level of anxiety that take place at those moments, but I’m not sure what triggers it (not really knowing the answer but thinking I do, fear of failure, fear of successes, idk).
Am I missing something? I need a fresh perspective, perhaps it will help.
Own the hesitation
How often in a real word situation do you forget a word so just fill in something that seems right? To me it’s all the time
And thats the language Ive spoken for 33 years
I ain’t gonna beat myself up over a very (relatively) abstract language I’ve only studied for a small fraction of that time
But that’s not the same situation, in your example you forget, in my case I ignore the first reaction I have to the prompt, so I do know the answer but something interferes, and what’s more in many cases it becomes a leech, even though my brain knows the answer. It’s like the hesitation is the interference and the brain remembers the hesitation as part of the process of answering particular items. It’s like an error in processing. I’ve been watching it for months now.
A lot of people combat that by intentionally not thinking about their answers. See prompt, type. If you get it wrong, you don’t know it well eough, and the repetition of failing it will eventually take care of that.
There’s a drawback to that, because sometimes there’s value in making yourself sit there and think through the mnemonic until you remember. (the “answer immediately” strategy also tends to induce a lot of typo-related errors from rushing)*
Middle strategy is to train yourself to NOTICE the difference. If you have to think twice, then at least make yourself stop and think a THIRD time, was I right the first time, or second time? The same thing happens to me on standardized fill-in-the-bubble tests. I usually burn through it filling in the first thing that comes to mind, then go back to the harder ones. I find that my first answer was correct a lot more than my “wait, no, it’s this” second reaction.
So “all you have to do” is “just” teach yourself a “I’m about to change my answer, danger, danger” reaction. easier said than done, I know
* edit: so I changed my “answer immediately” strategy to “WRITE the answer immediately, but DON’T PRESS ENTER!”. Check for typos, make sure that’s really what i want to answer, press enter.
My process is pretty similar to yours, I use the skip button or just fail an item when I don’t know it.
And I take my time only in cases that I try to recall the mnemonic and then see if perhaps I should change it (not being able to recall the aid fast is usually an indication of a faulty mnemonic).
I told myself that I should tell myself when this happens that the first answer is the correct one. Maybe I should put a post it on the screen that will remind me of this rule… because the third time that’s already a donkey between two stacks of hay.
ooh Σ('◉⌓◉’) that second one, hehe, that looks like a potential solution. I did notice I tend to press the enter key way too fast so much so I sometimes accidentally skip items I know when it is their second prompt so I need to do them again twice. Might be a connection here. yep.
Well now I’ll have to intentionally practice slowing down, not an easy task. I’m a guitarist and I type without looking at my keyboard so there’s some muscle memory tendencies I’ll have to go against as well. Tough challenge, lots of bad habits to break here.
Thank you.
Yeah, same. Good luck!
Too many people have the misconception that failing is inherently a bad thing. However, we actually learn more strongly from our failures.
I do this sort of thing semi-frequently, but I just look at it as me testing the limits of my memory. For example, there are a lot of words in WaniKani that have multiple meanings, and I’ll occasionally try to type the alternatives, even if I’m pretty sure I already know the primary meaning and could input that to more likely get the answer correct.
Also, have at least some minor satisfaction in knowing that the time you spent thinking about the answer is being used to better solidify your understanding of the word (or at the bare minimum, your understanding of what the word isn’t).
Another thing you briefly alluded to is self-sabotage (I’m interpreting “fear of successes”), which I don’t think your mind would let you do so blatantly unless you were doing WaniKani out of some sort of obligation and wanted out.
I think that I may have an understanding of what you are experiencing, because I think that I have encountered something similar - where I just know that what I’m keying in is the wrong answer because I know what the right answer is, but I continue keying in the wrong answer and submit it, and sure enough it is wrong and the one that I knew was correct was in fact the correct one.
I think that it may actually be related to a type of symptom of ADHD, where there may be some difficulty in translating or expressing the answer that you know is correct within your brain into the external action of typing it in, and instead your body seems to be on autopilot and is seemingly unable to change the direction that it is headed in, despite knowing that it needs to change.
There’s probably a label for that symptom (that I can’t think of right away)… It manifests in other ways, such as continuing to talk about a certain subject in a conversation, even though the conversation has moved on to something else.
I’ve gotten that tip from teachers prior to multiple choice exams: Pick something and don’t change it later. Often, our intuition works better than we realize. So next time when there are multiple answers popping up in your mind, pick the first one and see how it goes.
Usually the first one is correct. If you however notice that for some of the vocab, the first guess tends to be consistently wrong, then you need to work on improving the mnemonic or keyword for that vocab. Intuition can be forcefully fine-tuned/overwritten later, so don’t worry about it.
True, but not the point of my question. What I described and try to understand is how the brain process and executes information in a way that perhaps forms a habit that cements a faulty execution, and if it is indeed a habit is there a way to change it. But even if I did have this misconception, why being so exasperated about it? I did ask for help after all, isn’t it part of learning?
I have Cptsd, and some of its symptoms look like ADHD but their cause is different. I wasn’t able to build some really basic learning habits when I was at school and I’m trying to form better habits now, so I’ll be able to communicate better with my surrounding I mean people.
I’m really bad at this, and there are times when I read someone’s post and the only thing I can see is semantics and in many cases it’s completely irrelevant because that’s not the goal of the conversation. Things like “There’s still a person behind those words” and “You’re talking to a person not to an idea”, it a hard concept for sure, and I’m completely off topic… oops
That’s what makes the ones that prompt the hesitation response such an anomaly in my case. The second answer is consistently wrong, yet my brain doesn’t recognize the pattern and there’s no change of behavior. I really hope that reading all of your answers and discussing it will help me mend this disconnect, since I was only able to witness it until now (took me awhile, well maybe more then awhile to realize and analyze what’s going on and that there is a pattern to it).
I know it’s not going to be easy but it’s worth trying.
Perhaps it would’ve come across better if I didn’t put that at the start of my message or if I followed it up with a clarification that I wasn’t implying that it was your problem. There’s too little information available in your post to be able to adequately make such an accusation even if I wanted to, which I don’t because it’s also somewhat unconstructive to do so.
My intent, rather, was to preface my following statement’s line of thinking and also to remind any reader of my post to not judge their own failures too harshly.
Anyway, glad that it seems you found a response that helped you out.
When people start with a PSA but don’t indicate it with a change of subject like “speaking of which”, “This reminds me of” and such, I can’t tell what the intent of the writer is - is it a response to a person or just to an idea or a word that the op mentioned. I find it really confusing,
This also through me off. Is it an order? Is the person expresses disappointment? If it is an advice, why the use of “at least some minor”? It’s really hard to tell because this embellishment makes the sentence less neutral and kinda emphasizes quantity which indicates judgment of sorts.
It’s really hard to tell sometimes what’s important to the writer because the sentence is open to too many interpretations and the intent is not clear (to the reader not to the writer).
It might be a reading comprehension issue on my side ( and if it is I would gladly read an explanation of where I err, would be extremely helpful when reading replies and understanding them better), but even if isn’t I wish that people where more aware of the fact that putting indicators of intent (I’m referring to x, answering y, deviating for the purpose of z and so on) can make the conversation so much more easier to understand.
Thanks, and I appreciate you took the time to explain your reply I was really baffled by it.
I do that too! “I could go for the easy win here, but I think that also means this, right?” Risking being wrong for the chance of strengthening your knowledge.
First results in - it works!
I had a few of those hesitation hiccups items in my reviews today, and there was no hesitation.
The way you broke down the change of habit to essentially stopping before pressing the Enter key really helped me to break a bad habit. It was a small enough change so it was easy to implement.
Also having to describe the phenomenon itself and explain the nuance of it helped me understand better what’s really going on.
So again thank you everyone, sharing your thoughts and perspectives really made a difference.
Hesitation is defeat.
Someone had to say it
So much so they’ve opened an account for that soul purpose…no pun intendead
I’ve never played Dark Souls but the sentiment sounded like “Resistance is Futile” that I was pretty sure it was a catch phrase from a movie/series or a game
Long story short, usually, it’s not so much that I deal with hesitation as it is hesitation deals with me, putting me into a stupor or sometimes even into a panic attack 
One of the reasons I still hasn’t restarted my studies… Still, I do hope to restart soon…