I’m really glad you mentioned the idea of having the position of the radicals influence the mnemonic that is being used to remember the kanji because I feel like a greater emphasis should be placed on this concept. This could be utilised very effectively on kanji with radicals inside radicals and even on a more basic level with certain characters like 働 where the radicals go from a logical left to right in which case the story or mental scenery could be constructed to ensure the ‘leader’ comes first followed by the other two in order.
Furthermore, I find that there are certain cases where too many radicals are being used instead of making use of a previously learnt character that would naturally combine some of them. While I’m unable to think of any particular examples of these off the top of my head, I feel that when this does occur it significantly detracts from the quality of the mnemonic that is produced and just becomes downright confusing to recall.
@koichi I’m sorry questioning the legitimacy of a feedback category. I do understand the value of learner feedback it is useful for tweaking things in the future. And among all the duplicated threads and uninformed (not fully thought through) suggestions (in some cases demands), there are some good points that are made by both the OP or users responding to the OP. Thank you for taking the time respond.
Responding to what @Nightic and @Nath had posted, a big challenge that faces WK is its appeal to older learners (high school aged students and adults) because unlike many children, we are more likely to question/challenge what is presented to us (namely asking why X, Y, or Z is necessary). You’ve conveyed this through your “come (back) to the Crabigator” accounts. I think comments like these are very helpful.
Pertaining to @Nath’s suggestion of free more content so new users can see the effectiveness of WK radicals aiding the memorization (etc.) of more complex kanji, I don’t think it would make much of a difference. Although I acknowledge its merits, I could argue that a good amount of users doubting WK’s effectiveness come into the system with some form of Japanese study which gives them some basis, whether valid or not, question what they have to do here. (This is not to imply that WK in its current form is perfectly designed). With an understanding of the tendencies of older learners, if they are at the point in which they create topics such as these where they have already made their judgement about this resource, usually direct experience of some sort is effective in swaying such learners. This can be demonstrated by using WK for a couple of months to understand it’s effectiveness or try other resources to realize what is most compatible for them. Although you state that perhaps seeing more content during the trial period would be convincing for some, I don’t think it is typically one aspect that causes people give up early to try something else.
Just to clarify, what I meant was that all kanjis in level 1-3 can pretty much be learned in a “bruteforce” way, without any mnemonics. My idea was to show examples where mnemonics are really making a difference.
Now, typing this, I also realize that it impressed me so much because I’ve found an example that I have spent YEARS trying unsuccessfully to learn in a bruteforce way, while mnemonics managed to do it in seconds. Without the experience of past failures, it might not have seemed so impressive.
So, I don’t know how many people would be actually convinced by that. Considering how few actually read the guide/FAQ, maybe it’s too much to even expect them to have a look at the mnemonics or random high level kanjis. On the other hand, it worked for me (so that’s at least one point of data), and I don’t see the downside of making just a few more kanjis available.
I could see something like this being nice tho. For example, 傲 uses radicals all on level 4 or prior. Maybe if they made “leader” a level 3 radical, then after guruing the rest of level 3 kanji people could unlock this one. It would show people the power of mnemonics for actually complex kanji, and its fittingly named “proud” which is how people will feel after memorizing it.
I was pretty convinced by an example I read somewhere before starting (perhaps on WaniKani’s logged out page? or maybe it’s in the guide?) of the weekday kanji 曜 being broken up into sun, turkey, and two wolverines. I think that’s what got me to start…
I think that an animated intro to how the WK’s system works would by far be the best option (and I do think the team is working on something like that).
