Kana-Only Vocabulary Additions

Okay. We’ll see how it goes.

That said, I would suggest creating a new category for these words instead of listing them as radicals. “Kana” might do it and you can color it グリーン :slight_smile:

They are not listed as radicals. It sounds like you’re probably using a third-party app that has a bug.

Not to mention the other seventeen people

Or are you implying she’s the only person who’s won precisely one Emmy, one Grammy, four Oscars and two Tonies?

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And third place on American Idol

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This is so unsatisfying. I want details :confused: Wasn’t it in development for like 6 or 7 years? Did they toss all of it? Are they ever going to release anything? What is that development team doing now? Is this why WaniKani is all of a sudden getting weird attention? I hate that we’ll likely never get details on this or any official notification :frowning:

Oh Eto Eto,
I wish you’d please let me know,
What happened to you.

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btw everyone, looks like Flaming Durtles didn’t break with this update! You can do all reviews, including the kana-only words, they are just treated like radicals (blue background instead of purple). Which makes sense given they are functionally almost identical

It’s probably still a good idea to switch over to the new version (Smouldering Durtles) since that app’s supported, but at least this means it’s not an immediate concern :slight_smile:

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imo, seeing words out of context might be helpful, but for consolidation. I have to recall the context myself, not necessarily in WaniKani or a dictionary. Learning the first time might be different.

On repeating (with SRS), there are probably benefit both ways, but there would still be ones that context can’t just be recalled.

Out of context also as a benefit of looking into more details, precisely why learning Kanji is helpful.

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Agreed.

99.987% of the time I just SRS stuff “out of context” in Wanikani – I know it or I don’t, move on.

There are two exceptions in my case where I really pay attention to the extra context provided (and often want even more):

  1. Initial lessons for a vocabulary word. I generally read everything on a lesson page for anything unfamiliar.

  2. “Hey, wait a minute!” moments during my reviews. This happened for various reasons. I might have simply noticed I’ve been missed an answer too many times and then take the time to learn more. I might realize I’m confusing two visually similar characters. Or I might think, “Hey, wasn’t there a different word that meant the same thing but used different characters?”. Or maybe, “Hey, why are there so many ways to say basically the same thing – what’s the difference between all of these?” In all of these cases, I’d also take the time to review everything on the individual subject’s page (as well as anything related that I had questions about).

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wait so everyone’s concerns about that just didn’t happen

Well I guess keeping this as the same api version makes sense now considering the most popular third-party android app didn’t explode with it.

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Flaming durtles FTW

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I also don’t get that argument that singularly focusing on kanji will be helpful for you in the long run. I was one of those people that you describe above. I had loads of vocab under my belt when I started wanikani from almost 15 years of immersion learning. So, there would be words that I knew from before WK all the way up to lv 60 in the end (this is my second run, for fun and deeper learning).

But, I always and still mostly look forward to the vocab lessons since that’s where you actually learn how to make use of the language, and that’s the most important aspect WK teaches you. Knowing onyomi on its own isn’t very helpful and easily forgotten without knowing how that gets implemented in actual words.

Since I mostly learnt from listening practice, I found it very satisfying to learn how to those words were written, to see which kanji comprised the words, and finally understand the whys of those words. Not to mention, the huge amount of vocab that WK taught me that I didn’t know! There will already be some kana words going forward that I have not encountered before, so I’m very excited about those lessons coming up! ^>^

For the rest, it’s a great way to cement that knowledge that I have, and really make it my own. From my experience it’s easy to think you know something, while that knowledge is actually a bit vague in your mind due to lack of actual effort put into learning it (such as when you learn from immersion). SRS is the perfect way to correct any misunderstandings and to push that knowledge into a deeper sense of certainty in your mind. It’s a great tool for learning really, which doesn’t require all that much of you but is a bit like doing a sodoku for relaxation after work. it’s great stuff really! :smiling_face:

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Wanikani has been incredibly useful to me and i have no idea how I would learn kanji if it weren’t for it. But, as much as it’s essential to me for learning how to read, it’s also the main thing that slows me down in my talking and listening learning process since I spend more than half the time i have for Japanese learning on Wanikani. If it weren’t for Wanikani, I would without a doubt be way better at japanese speaking now (although I couldn’t read at all).

What i’m trying to say is that I don’t have time for this nonsense. Why in the world is it not opt-in from the start ?

Why would you force people that have been learning japanese for YEARS to have リンゴ in their review list for months until they’re able to burn them ?

Also, even for complete beginners, adding はい、いいえ、おはよう is just moronic. Who needs that ? It’s literally the first words you learn in japanese. Is there one person on earth who ever struggled to remember that ?

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Oh it makes sense now that you dont understand that people would be annoyed and burdened by stuff they already know appearing in their SRS. You are after all apparently enjoying just learning the same stuff again for fun.

Its of course cool to do whatever you want with your free time and hobby, who am i to judge? But you need to realise that people often dont appreciate wasting their time.
Rather than spending time on learning something again (granted, it takes less and less time every time), you can learn something new or simply immerse more, which will definetly help more with “deeper learning” than doing WK again. Saying you can do 70 lessons in one day without problem as a defense to new items being added is a bit missleading since you forgot to mention that you after all knew all of those items and you are enjoying this repetition - you could have also learned 10+ new items in that time instead.

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While I thought of liked the idea in the beginning, I’m beginnning to wonder, it sorta feels wrong to learn vocab this way. In wanikani, my brain goes “picture”->“meaning/reading”. To see a reading and having to write a meaning - I’m not sure it is too helpful. But I will give it a try first.

If some unmaintained add-ons break, maybe you could release a separate API key in which the kana-only vocab is flagged as radical? Then at least flaming durtles and wkstats would also still work, I guess?

Apart from that I would prefer to have more or the official kanji supported in wanikani (maybe make some 5 more levels or something?).

Edit: I don’t mind “learning” things I know, though. I just click through the lessons super fast and type the answer in a second. So if I knew all of them, and if I were level 60, and if they came out all at the same time, it would be 1 minute of extra work for some days. I take far longer to actually learn something that I do not know already, so it’s not really comparable imho.

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Yes, I had a feeling of “this feels odd” too first time I reviewed them. (Second time as well :sweat_smile:).

Someone already mentioned it, but I guess having the meaning and then typing in the reading feels… More correct?

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I don’t agree that adding はい、いいえ、おはよう is moronic for complete beginners. As a beginner, I struggled with semi-fluent, let alone fluent, reading of kana in whole words. These basic items would reinforce kana fluency for those who’ve just learned it.

While I still agree with the opt-in/out for kana vocab, it feels strange to read that WaniKani is the thing that slows you down. If you spend more than half the time you’ve got here, that’s by choice. Why not rebalance your process to do less WK and more listening/talking if that’s what you feel is missing? One reinforces the other anyway.

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Leveling of Kana vocabularies feels strange. No reason to put ホッチキス so high.

Perhaps most can be put below Level 20. Or no level at all, WaniKani just need to find a way to manage vocabulary Lessons… which is just more difficult for, previously, a Kanji-leveled website.

Opt-in set is one of the ideas.

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No, what I don’t understand, is that there is now a crowd of nay-sayers that thinks they should convince anyone that are optimistic and that are still actually enjoying WK, that this is in fact a completely unacceptable opinion that no one should be allowed to have; everyone needs to trash talk WK and vine just like them, smh. We just don’t agree on this. Let it go!

And not to completely mute this thread!

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Weird, from my perspective it looks like some people were saying “I like this update because …” and others were saying “I don’t like this update because …” (maybe in harsh words) and all was fine, until some people started second guessing each other’s learning styles and preferences. You’re holding it wrong, if it bothers you, you’re just trying to speed-run, why are you trying to game WaniKani?.

This update (along with previous updates) changes things for existing WaniKani users, and while nobody has a problem with people who welcome these changes, some people like me are really annoyed at the presumptuousness of some people who seem to believe that it’s heretical to criticise a service one pays for. Is it really so inconceivable that some people are negatively affected by changes like this? Why just not believe people when they say this? I’m not questioning the people who say they like the updates either, because I know that different people have different needs, learning styles, and so on. I wish this was understood by everyone.

Of course, at some point everything has been said already a thousand times, which is why I don’t feel a huge need to reiterate everything and wouldn’t mind this thread being closed. I feel like all the criticism has been voiced multiple times, and at this point you either trust tofugu, or you don’t and should just move on for your own (and everyone else’s) sake (which I’ve done). But let’s be real about where the toxicity is actually coming from.

edited to add:
It’s also completely pointless because exactly nobody benefits from the WaniKani users bickering with each other.

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I agree with you but:

By your own admition that’s good for understanding the kanji better, not necessarily the vocab. I feel the same way, but that’s why I say that WK is good at teaching kanji, not vocabulary.

While going through WK I feel that I gain a good understanding of the various meanings of most kanji, but the vocab itself is a bit of a blur for me.

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