Kanji skills at WK and 'in the wild'

Hi there,

There were a few occassions that I could recall a kanji + readings in WaniKani but was lost when I saw them ‘in the wild’ with slightly different fonts or another variable. Is this a normal occurence to you guys? How have you tried to overcome this discrepancy between success in the lab and some failure outdoors?

Thank you all in advance. And please, some common courtesy and non-BS would be appreciated!

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I think this happens with most people at first too. But honestly the solution is super straightforward. Just keep reading things and getting practice and you’ll get used to it. Eventually you’ll pick up on how different fonts/styles differ and what the important details for identifying a kanji are.

It’s like, think about the letter “a” written vs typed in most fonts. It’s completely different, but you don’t even think about it being a different thing because you’ve (presumably) had years and years of practice, seeing it every day.

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Fully agree with the previous reply that just reading more is the best remedy for this problem.
I have one more tip though: There is a script that randomizes the font of the kanji in Wanikani, which I think really helps for kanji that you encounter less commonly in regular reading.

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Learning is pretty context specific, so when you learn something in an app like WK, it’s normal for it to take a little while before you can apply it in the real world. The fonts being different don’t help, but even the kanji being in a sentence can trip you up until you get used to it. We’ve all been there though - I had to look up 東 four times in as many pages in my first novel, despite not having any problem with it in any of the manga I’d read before :sweat:

I personally find learning the basics of writing/stroke order helps sometimes with weird fonts, but like the others have said, ultimately you’ve just gotta read a lot…

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Very helpful, thanks!

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Thanks, I appreciate it!

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ありがとうございます!

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Yeah, I’ve some people have this problem. I personally have not and I think it’s primarily because I started reading long before I started WaniKani. So, I think you can infer from that that it is simply practice. You may need to look up the kanji here and there, but once you start doing that your brain will be more able to apply the WK kanji to ‘natural’ situations.

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Hmmm for me personally WaniKani enhances the overall reading capabilities and I’m super happy when I encounter the kanji and vocab I learned through WaniKani somewhere ‘in the wild’. But in general there are words and characters I learned outside of WaniKani and will only encounter at higher levels and ones I only learned through WaniKani, like 水中 or 中止.

Font differences I struggle with constantly. Either the characters are too tiny and I can’t read them properly unless I zoom in a lot or in some font sets characters are written incorrectly (直 and オ among others). Hiragana and Katakana I can manage fairly well, though.

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If you are talking about websites, I use a Chrome extension called rikaikun. It removes a lot of the frustration to try to look up a kanji meaning if you don’t recognize it, and you can continue trying to read the rest of the article with less interruption. Eventually seeing it in different contexts you’ll have less of a need.

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I experienced this recently. I played PSP version of Sorairo VN, and I don’t know if it was the quirk of the game itself, or the PPSSPP emulator I used, but in the game 直 has been rendered in its Chinese (?) version, without that bottom L-shaped part. However it showed correctly in text hooking program.

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That happens, but it will diminish as you practice more, and it almost never happens more than once per word at the most. Once you look up a few words, your brain will start to open the floodgates and let the rest of that knowledge through. The Japanese games that I’ve been playing lately have fonts that can be a real pain in the butt. But with practice (and Jisho), I’ve gotten used to it.

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I always get オ katakana and 才 kanji mixed up in font sets.

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I can confirm that is its chinese counterpart.

In my experience, reviewing something on WK, I know for a fact that I’ve learned that word before. Seeing the same word in the wild, my mentality leans far more toward “I probably don’t know this word” and sometimes that’s all it takes for me to not recognize a word I might know with a few seconds’ thought in the WK context.

(That said, if it’s a word I’d get with almost no thought on WK, I think I’m better at recognizing it in the wild too.)

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Haha, that’s a brilliant point.

Out in the wild, the training wheels are off. You could come across 鳥 or 烏 without warning so you’re way more cautious.

Only way to get past that is keep reading.

烏?! I quit.

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Well, you probably won’t come across 烏 without warning. カラス tends to be written in katakana. イカ more so.

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I’ve gotten so used to seeing this one that I don’t even notice the difference anymore :sweat_smile:

The main thing I used to struggle with was those really low res fonts like you get on a gameboy. it’s not so bad when you learn the rules behind it though.

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Let me tell you about the time when I spent the better part of an hour trying to look up 瀟洒 because I didn’t know 洒 was a different kanji from 酒…

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