I am sometimes mixing up kanji and related vocab :)

Hey guys,

I am a new member so first I’d just like to thank for a great companion for learning Japanese. Every day I just can’t wait until WaniKani tells me I have more work to do :wink:

But I also have had a few occurrences when WK has told me I gave the wrong answer. Usually this has happened whenever the kanji and the vocab have the same meaning, and I have given the reading for the other.

One of the great features of the platform is when the system tells you it wants the other reading. Would it be possible to match the kanji and corresponding vocabs that uses the same character, and “shake the head” whenever an incorrect but related answer has been given?

This would be of enormous help when using this great platform.

Cheers and have a great day!

Per

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Welcome, I’m glad you’ve been enjoying WK ^^

This is addressed in the FAQ:

So as you can see, the wiggle is okay when it’s a kanji (pink background), but wouldn’t work for when it’s functioning as a vocab item (purple background) – it can take a little time to get used to it, but taking an extra moment to confirm what WK is looking for during reviews can go a long way in preventing errors moving forward

There are also certain userscripts that can allow you to override incorrect responses and let you try again or mark it right (like the Override script or the Double-Check script), but it’s important to not abuse the scripts and to make sure you use it when you really did know the answer but made an error/typo

Let us know if you have any other questions, がんばって ! :crabigator:

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MissMisc,

Thank you for your quick reply!

From a memory recall perspective, is it a bad thing to spend too many seconds on the answer? I know some SRS platforms measure time and bail out if you spend too much to your disadvantage.

Thanks a lot,

Per

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spend as much time on it as you like, it’s not detrimental. however, it indicates you don’t know something well enough yet. proceed to move it up the ladder, or abort (put in a wrong answer on purpose) to rank it down, so you’ll learn it better.

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I’ll give another answer than @OmukaiAndi. If I manage to remember the correct answer, even if it takes me 30 second or a minute (I don’t time it), I’m very happy because I did remember. I had to search my memory, really search along the pathways of my brain to connect the two items and that search reinforces the answer. Of the times I can remember having to do that long search, I’ve never had trouble remembering the answer at later reviews.

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I agree with both of you. Taking a long time to know the answer is a sign you don’t know it well, but usually if I feel like it’s on the tip of my tongue, I can work the answer out in 30 sec - 1 minute. Any longer than that and I truly don’t know it, so rather than wasting more time and beating myself up I’ll just enter a wrong answer intentionally.

I think that giving an item this amount of thinking time is good, because if you can remember something within around 30 seconds with a little effort, your brain will reach that conclusion faster the next time around. It’s like the SRS “just before you forget it” but on a smaller scale. If you’re just about to forget an item and it’s just out of reach, but you remember it again, that’s good.

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You explain it better than me. ^^

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