I have a question, and I mean this seriously, but I’m curious whether other WK users find the related kanji/vocab info during lessons to be helpful in some way or if it’s just too much information at once and actually decreases retention of the lesson material.
I’m talking about the section during new lessons where it will show you upcoming kanji that use the radical you’re learning, or upcoming vocabulary that use a the kanji you’re learning. The idea is to get you ready to see how the radical/kanji will be used in upcoming kanji/vocab but if you’re going to learn those later anyway when those items come up in your lessons, why? They often involve other radicals/kanji you haven’t even learned yet too, which makes it even more confusing.
It feels distracting for me, and I find that checking the extra info there causes me to lose focus on the actual meaning/reading of the lesson I’m on. It’s like ads in an article that distract you to tell you something you didn’t need to know, or those little inserts in an article where they make a block of enlarged text in the middle that is actually just a quote from later in the article, so it comes totally out of context and just confuses you. Leave me alone and let me read what I’m supposed to be reading right now. I’ll get there.
Basically I feel that this section isn’t helpful to me and that skipping it might help improve my focus and retention on the lessons, but I haven’t tried doing that and I’m curious if anyone else has. I’d like other users to make arguments (from experience) for or against reading the related kanji/vocab sections during lessons. Maybe someone can convince me that I should continue reading them, or that I shouldn’t. Because the creators seem to think it’s important, I’m kind of worried to just skip it without hearing from others what they think first. I am not an expert on this and don’t wanna jip myself out of using the resource to the fullest, but if others have found that skipping that info improved their learning I think I will try.
I skip the related kanji on radical lessons, but I do usually glance over the related vocab for kanji items since it can give me a better idea on the meaning of a kanji item. Seeing the types of words a kanji is used in gives me a little bit of perspective on it I guess? For example it shows how 公 is often used to mean “public” in the sense of government. I definitely don’t spend too much time on it though, I agree that it can muddle the original item I’m trying to learn. Just a glance.
Do you use any other resources foe learning Japanese at this point? I always found it a trip if I saw a kanji or word there that I had already learned. I could be like: ‘that’s where I know the kanji from!’
Another benefit I see, is that you get to see what position the radical usually takes up in a kanji. But nowadays I usually quickly enter through to the next item, since this is my second time through the earlier levels.
I find it much easier to learn a kanji in the context of a word I already know (or can easily learn). So I found that section useful, at least until I reached higher levels where I didn’t know any words using the kanji I was learning.
As someone who had already been learning Japanese for a year or so before I started using WK I very much appreciated the related items info. It was pretty much all I looked at, honestly. I understand how someone who might not already be somewhat familiar with those related items would not find it useful, though
I’ll usually glance at it to get get a better sense of the meaning or gain some context. I ignore it for most items, but I’ve found it useful for items where I have trouble forming a mental model.
Thanks. I think that makes more sense. It does seem helpful for the related vocab more than when its for showing related kanji for radicals. I think in that case it’s seeing the words below each kanji telling the meaning of them that throw me off, b/c after reading 4 meanings I sometimes fixate on one and then forget the meaning of the radical in the first place. Just glancing at them visually to see where the radical is often placed in words is a good idea. I guess I’ll just try to ignore the text below each kanji during that part.
When a kanji has multiple accepted readings, I choose which one to memorize by looking at the related vocab. For example 爪 accepts つめ and つま but I chose to memorize つめ since that is the only one used for the vocab.