Looking up wanikani items from texts before they are burned?

[Zondrak]

Hey guys
I generally try to read any piece of Japanese text that i come across and, naturally, sometimes I forget recently learned words or kanji. My first instinct is to immediately check them out on jisho.org, or even wanikani itself.
This of course means that I’m messing with that word’s SRS progression.
Should I just keep myself in the dark for the sake of the memorization process, or should I prioritize reading comprehension?

What do you guys usually do in this situation ?

[Belthazar]

I’d honestly prioritise reading comprehension.

You’re learning kanji here so that you can use it when you read things. If you’re not using it when you read things because you’re still learning it here, it kinda feels like you’re missing the point.

[Zondrak]

Thanks, yeah , that’s pretty much how I feel.
Nevertheless it feels weird if you’re close to burning the item and this gives you an artificial boost.

[seanblue]

If only WaniKani had a demote feature where you could manually drop the SRS of any item at any time. Then you could demote an item any time you saw it in the wild and didn’t recognize it.
(cc @viet @oldbonsai )

And I agree with @Belthazar that looking it up makes sense.

[Thud]

I saw 里心 on this forum like a few minutes before burning it lol.

But you’re not here to ace the WK srs system, but to learn the language. And the parts you learn outside the confines of WK is also part of learning.

[Rowena]

@Zondrak

gives you an artificial boost.

It’s not artificial if you’re coming across them while you’re reading.

[madtapa]

As long as it’s not a burn, if you have forgotten it again by its next review, it’ll drop down at that point, so you’ll get more reviews in the end. (And it’s possible you’ll be more likely to remember it by the next review if you keep seeing it while reading!) If it is a burn, there are ways to review burns, too! (resurrect or self study/burn management scripts)

Plus the extra bonus that any kanji you see enough (and look up to understand and learn) before you learn it on WK feels like a bonus easy lesson when you finally get to it