I’m looking for some advice. Ever since the huge update and the radical change, my accuracy has been going down. Sometimes I get a burn item wrong, and when I look at the mnemonic to refresh my memory I just get more confused because the radicals and mnemonics are all different than what I’ve learned. It’s difficult to adjust my brain to something I’ve learned as another thing before, even though I’ve done the lessons for the updated radicals. I feel a bit discouraged and so I was wondering, have you reset your account to learn everything all over again? Which level did you do it on? Do you think I should?
I haven’t reset before, but my advice would be to find a level-ordered WK kanji flash card deck and find where your accuracy starts slipping. That might be the right level to reset to.
You can change back to the old mnemonics in the settings tab. Im afraid i cant give any advice on resetting if that doenst help since Ive never had to do that.
I reset from level 10 to 2. I’d been taking a long break from WK, wanted to get going again, and the radical change made the reset a no-brainer for me.
Are you doing much with what you learn? I mean… The levels and the whole web interface is the part that it’s easy to follow in WK… But then there’s the other stuff that Koichi recommends alongside you progress in WK … Like reading once it’s possible …
I think given you have already went a long way using WK, you 'll find more benefit in doing more immersion than more SRS … After you start reading the SRS intervals really are like the bare minimum interval you’ll see only a few words… Most of the time you’ll encounter words many times between on review and the next on the same item. Besides this will help tremendously for further lessons, as you will start encounter items you already know from reading ……
Overall besides the change in radicals think it’s normal that learning by mnemonics becomes less efficient once you reach a critical mass… A better tool for my case has been the semantic-phonetic keisei script here.
Anyway , I’m a big fan if reading … Not so much a fan of SRS apps currently
I do go to Japanese class at the same time as doing wk and I have some magazines at home I’m aiming to read. I also use Satori reader sometimes, but I should use it more often. One thing I’ve noticed is that we use the basic kanji book in our class and I know all the kanji in the chapters already before we learn them So that’s a plus, I can just review! But yes I should be reading more, you’re right.
Alternate perspective… I invent pretty much every mnemonic for myself because homemade ones work better for me, but I have never once written them down. After I get a burn wrong (or anything wrong) and see the correct answer, the mnemonic always comes to me pretty much straight away. Imo it might be that if you don’t remember the mnemonic after seeing the correct answer, it probably wasn’t a very useful mnemonic for you in the first place.
In that regard it might be useful to have a new/alternate mnemonic to focus on, creating more neural connections to link the same information, rather than breaking out the old mnemonics. I’ve been embracing the new radicals but still use the old radical names if it’s convenient (like today I learned 逮 and used “water slide” rather than scooter for the mnemonic, about apprehending the wolverine paddling around at the bottom of the water slide and たいing him up so he can’t escape).
The new stuff doesn’t have to be a burden, you can make it work for you.
Can I ask you what is your average accuracy recently? If it’s anything above 70% I wouldn’t recommend resetting, and instead keep going on at a lower pace and let the SRS do its magic.
Let’s say you get something wrong - and as you say, you look at the mnemonic or whatever and it’s something new. If you were to reset… you’re just going to come across that same information. Going to be the same situation - something you learned one way before, and now it’s something new.
I’d just keep going. Some stumbling blocks? Sure. But that’s no big deal.
I feel you. I’m having the same struggle with 110 lessons in the queue, all while I get the current stuff wrong. I have been stuck on level 22 since the change and and I’m getting really demotivated. My time is finite, and I spent a year getting here, so I personally don’t want to reset. I’m trying to power through this and I think you should too.
On a side note, I really wish you could show the old wanikani site as it was, not just the “Display Old Mnemonics” setting as it’s not the same thing.
I’ll do that first then, see if it helps
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So that’s a plus, I can just review! But yes I should be reading more, you’re right.