I think there should be better typo detection for readings

I’m sure I’m not the only one who sometimes falls back on the reviews because of typos on the vocabulary reading exercises. When you type fast and hit enter reflexively it’s inevitable that you’ll make mistakes. You hit the wrong key or don’t press it to the point of detection. I think the only ‘typo’ WaniKani detects is probably with ‘ん’ unintentionally merging with あ い う え お. It feels bad losing weeks of progress with an item not because you didn’t know something or didn’t remember right, but because blind typing you hit the wrong key or didn’t press hard enough or because of keyboard chattering.

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Hello hello, welcome!

Since WK teaches from English to Japanese, it is fair to assume people have quite some mastery of English. So it’s fair to assume that they mean walk when writing wlak.

For the readings, WK has absolutely no way of know whether you accidentally hit い when you meant う, or whether you are giving and incorrect answer after misremembering. Striking down any reading mistake is the only way of ensuring you’re learning the correct reading.

Having said that, I can understand the frustration, as someone that makes pleeeenty of dumb typos. There are scripts that allow you to undo incorrect answers. You have to be very careful to only use them for typos, and not walk into the pitfall of wasting time on WK by letting your mistakes slide.

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Not only native english speakers use WaniKani. But aside of that, it does with verbs. Stops and asks even the native english speaker whether they really meant to type ‘walk’ or ‘to walk’ and won’t let past until you fix the mistake.

Wanikani also sometimes on reading practices stops you if the word has 2 readings and won’t let you past until you write the one it refers to as ''more common reading".

And that’s all I’m suggesting. Same with ‘ん’ merging or with more common-less common readings, an option to fix the typo.

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But then again, you should look at what it is you’re typing, not just rush it in and hit “enter” and hope for the best, right?

I personally am more annoyed when I give the on’yomi reading to a kanji but WK insists on the kun’yomi and fails me for that. But they (WK) are slowly changing that and for that reason you have the shake-response.

But other than that? I don’t think anything needs to be changed. づ isn’t つ, etc. It’s wrong and we want to learn what’s right. As soon as WK starts to do more than alert the odd merging of ん, it will start to do too much IMHO.

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Do you have a specific example in mind? As far as I know, it only prioritizes readings for kanji so it’s not a broad behavior.

But mostly this, I’m afraid. I would agree with shake warnings for incorrect English meanings, but for readings that might work to the detriment of learning.

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There were times when I just pressed Enter twice because I’m confident with the answer and then I was like “eh, I saw a red flash”
I think at least WK can improve on this, make sure the learners make a full stop when making a mistake, it’s a simple feature.

I don’t remember doing many typos before level 10 – but now I’m on lv 18, I make typos at least once in a review, I think I will soon understand what you really mean by “pleeeeenty”

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I personally am more annoyed when I give the on’yomi reading to a kanji but WK insists on the kun’yomi and fails me for that

WK never fails you fails you for that, unless you use the wrong reading in a word. I think that’s alright.

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Totally agree. I’m basically a clumsy typer and without the double-check script, would’ve been screwed, and to be honest, before I used the script, Wanikani could seem overly punitive about things I knew that I knew.

I think some version of the double-check script should be a built in option for the site.

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That’s a mood.

I would love for WK to have native mistake delay (but until that time; it’s a script that’s available to save yourself pain.)

There were numerous times where I was mistaking one kanji for another, and I mashed enter twice and bypassed the red screen, so I was unable to check what it was. I think it came by three or four times before I finally realised in time which one it was. :see_no_evil:

I really love the mistake delay script. It was a good friend when doing batches of 150 reviews.

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Oh, well, today I learned that’s built into double check. I was sitting here like “Yeah, it does have mistake delay, and it’s great.” That’s absolutely a feature WK would be much better with if they added it natively.

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Sorry, you’re wrong there. Not all of the kanji that ask for a kun’yomi reading accept the on’yomi reading with a shake-response, a number still just fail you. And it just happened to me half an hour ago for 叔 and a couple of others. In this case the on’yomi reading isn’t a “wrong” reading, it’s just not the one WK has taught us. That doesn’t make it wrong :slight_smile:

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Do you have a specific example in mind? As far as I know, it only prioritizes readings for kanji so it’s not a broad behavior.

I think it was a two kanji word I got to last week with my lessons. It stroke me as odd too because until then it accepted both readings if both were right. I don’t remember which one was it only that the lesson didn’t let me through until I gave the more common reading.

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There were times when I just pressed Enter twice because I’m confident with the answer and then I was like “eh, I saw a red flash”

Exactly. Once typing is automatic, you don’t think on pressing the keys.

If it’s a vocab item, that’s fairly unusual. If you know that the word can have 2 readings and both are for sure valid (as checked with a JP-JP dictionary, for instance) and mean the same thing, I would report this :slight_smile:

Minor correction, but I’m relatively certain the お reading that WaniKani teaches for 叔 isn’t the on’yomi reading, but is actually the nanori reading.

Either way, yeah, they’ve been slowly implementing the “shake” warning, but I still fail a number of them myself if I mix up the readings, so I hope to see it more, though it has forced me to slow down my reviews and ensure I’ve typed the right answer, so I guess it’s ultimately not necessarily a bad thing to be that strict…if not still quite frustrating.

Edit: (funnily enough) typo correction.

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Right you are, my mistake. :smiley:

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Only one comes to mind here: 偽物 goes by both にせもの and ぎぶつ, but I think WK only accepts the former but the latter is actually visible as they display the kanji. I assume the latter isn’t used much anymore and has been omitted for that reason.

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Haven’t they added something for small tsu and long vowel/no long vowel recently? But only for newer users.

I do agree that it’s harder to assume what’s a typo and what’s a genuine mistake in the Japanese answer. The worst typos thread is proof that even the English input has holes where someone can learn/burn something completely wrong because of the typo system, and this is a more curated version of the site, I can’t imagine the mess for the Japanese version.

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Any error-detection scheme is going to have type 1 and type 2 errors and then you’re going to fall into a mess of whitelists and blacklists to correct for that and etc. etc. Especially with the reading, and Japanese having so many homophones, how is Wanikani supposed to know you made a typo and aren’t just guessing or remembered it wrong?

How about if you just don’t press enter until you’re sure that’s your answer, and live with what you entered? It’s not WaniKani’s job to adapt to your carelessness

If you’re just mashing the keyboard and hastily pressing enter (gross exaggeration, lol), you’re prioritizing speed over accuracy.

“Doctor, it hurts when I do this!”
Stop doing that.

[representing the grumpy party]

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my laptop keyboard is hypersentitive, without double chcck I would be dead already in the reviews

a slight pressing in some keys becoming a つ already making them wrong when I hit enter without seeing the word I typed.

I suck at typing in smartphone, so flaming durtles with anki mode,

so I dont sweat with this kind of problem anymore, now the memory is my enemy only :smiley: