I just noticed on the Tsurukame app (where I usually do my Wanikani lessons and reviews) that we can add different fonts, and after adding all of them I realized I can barely read any of them, so I asked a Japanese person if it’s important that I be able to read all of these fonts, and she said she can read them so it’s important.
Thus, I’m wondering if I should be starting from the beginning, studying with all the fonts selected? Or is that too extreme? But realistically, that’s the only way I’m going to be able to read in all fonts I figure. Before I reset, I’d like to know what others think about it? I have noticed at restaurants in Japan on some menus where they have different kanji fonts it’s harder to read for me, and some restaurant signs I can’t read the kanji at all until someone points it out to me and then I realize I know those kanji, so perhaps I should reset and study with all the fonts selected.
That does sound a bit extreme since kanji have many parts that will start to repeat. If you just start reading the fonts now it’ll be the same as resetting in the long run other than that you would lose a ton of time.
Best way to make font recognition easier would be to learn how the parts are written. (Some radicals on WK are straight up wrong)
It’s too extreme. You can’t learn everything at the same time. Pick your battles.
Learning to deal with “fancy” fonts and handwritten characters is more than just kanji recognition, it’s vocabulary knowledge and context cues. As your Japanese improves you’ll get better at dealing with it even without specific practice.
I was playing a low-resolution game the other day and the word 誕生 came up, the 誕 kanji was really blurry and hard to parse, I could only really make out the 言 radical, but then in context it was obvious what the kanji was, just because I guessed that the word had to be 誕生. If you had given me the kanji in isolation I probably would have guessed something else.
The better you get the easier it gets to make these kinds of guesses and inferences. Even if you struggle to recognize a kanji component here and there you have enough knowledge of the language to know that there are only a few possible kanji that would make sense in this position and you can easily “solve the riddle”, so to speak.
Hello,
I did all the WK lessons on WK website, without changing the font.
I have the same issue as yours: sometimes, I don’t recognize a kanji because the font is different, especially with stylised fonts.
I think it is not an issue to get used to other fonts after you have reached level 60, because you will already have solid basis then, and the remainign effort to read the other fonts should not be so big, just a matter of training your eye.
If you have the opportunity to train your eye from know, why not, but I think it may bring some extra work load, and I wonder if it is realy worth it, considering the benefit.
If I allocate time to my studies, I prefer to use it for getting new vocabulary or kanji than to train my eye on a new font.
Don’t worry about it and just keep studying and familiarizing yourself with the language in one font. Once you’re comfortable, learning new fonts will be very easy.
For example, this font was a challenge for me and I could almost read none of it, but after a couple hours it became readable. The reason I was able to adapt so quick was because of my fundamental familiarity with the language.
It is important but you don’t need to sabotage yourself and overcorrect. Do it gradually.
You don’t have to choose all the fonts you can choose one type that will randomly alternate with the fonts you’re used to, I would suggest choosing Hoso Fuwa first so it would still be closer to what you’re familiar with, then see how you fare. If it really hurt your accuracy, just drop it for now, because it will get you from learning something to learning nothing, and it’s something to consider at your stage.
I used to use this option on tsurukame and it’s helpful for sure, but I wouldn’t call it essential, when your brain develops a sound familiarity with reading standard kanji it’s ability to recognize variations and adapt will grow the more you encounter them, but you need to create a sound base first.
When I started using the extra fonts in Tsurukame (I don’t remember what level, but likely somewhere in the 20s at minimum), I eased into it by only using the easiest-to-read ones before adding the rest later. And the good thing is, if you can’t read it or just want to double-check that you’re reading it right before entering your answer, you can tap on it to switch it to the regular font. Being able to compare like that has been pretty helpful with some kanji/components. You can even swipe to cycle between the different fonts you have activated. (I discovered both those things by accident.)
Between that and reading manga and playing video games, which don’t always use more standard fonts and can have handwritten parts too, it’s gotten a lot easier to read stylized fonts and handwriting, and I’ve never reset. I still have trouble reading cursive, messy handwriting, and highly stylized fonts, of course, but Tsurukame isn’t going to help with that.
So, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. You can reset if you really want to, but it’s not necessary.
That’s way extreme and totally unnecessary imo. You’ll get used to it much quicker than you think, and it’s not like you need to memorise all the characters all over, your eyes just need to learn to recognise the strokes and radicals you’re already familiar with in different variations. Start with the easiest fonts in Tsurukame and work your way up to Armed Banana and you’ll be totally fine. Please don’t reset anything
Yes, indeed. I’m noticing that I’m losing the specific kanji knowledge but still I can read better than before because I look at the general “shape” of the words and can recognise them. That’s also what happens with different fonts and even handwriting.
I didn’t use any font randomisation scripts, just over time got exposed to various fonts in different sources.
I do remember it was a hit to my accuracy when wk review font changed.
It may be a good idea to have some font randomisation just to get used to looking at strokes and radicals rather than remembering a “picture” of a specific font. But I wouldn’t recommend using any weird handwritten fonts.
I definitely notice that. I still have an Anki deck for writing practice where I’m prompted by meaning and need to remember how to draw the kanji, the other day 済む came up and while I see and read this word on a daily basis I was completely unable to remember how to draw it when prompted. I couldn’t even remember the water radical. Eventually your brain matches on the full word when you see it and you stop paying attention to the details.
The form over substance conundrum - the way the brain latches to the structure of whatever you use to learn as a beginner, it’s like trying to reason with a picky eater… and then you open some random manga and… oh, so we use all the fonts type all the time all over the place?
