New Content not so Optional After All

Agreed, I just want all those changed Kanji reset at the end of the day. I’m extremely time poor, I’d rather they reset them back so it feels like another level to accomplish then get things wrong through no fault of my own.

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Yes you are absolutely right. I noticed that too. Keeping the old mnemonics doesn’t help when you remember the “wrong” reading. So it would be best if there was an option to keep the old mnemonics AND also be asked about the old readings. Then one would really be free to choose.

However, WK has made learning kanji so much easier. If there was no WK, who knows if I’d even still be learning Japanese, or had given up a long time ago. Keeping that in mind I really don’t mind to relearn the radicals and change to the new mnemonics.

Also at least for me once I’ve learned a kanji with the help of mnemonics, I can recall the reading and meaning even if I have forgotten about the mnemonic.

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This is one of the reasons I’m choosing to stick around: “肘を舐めれるかどうかは分からないけど、試しにやってみるよ。” - One of the example sentences for the vocab word “To Attempt”.

… even though, I’m still pissed at them. And yes, there’s no better tool to learn kanji.

It’s not, though. That’s the mental switch you have to make. It’s teaching you more readings, and how can that be a bad thing? The “level up” is an arbitrary number. You’re still learning and getting better at Japanese.

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Please take another look at my post. My issue isn’t that it’s teaching new readings it’s that it isn’t. It’s just testing me on them.

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Relearning the radicals was around 20 minutes. They got much more logical. Once I learn a kanji which is the same as a radical, i forget the radical anyway, and use the kanji in mnemonics. For the changed kanji readings…I already have some kanji which seem to change its reading depending on my answer to make me wrong :smiley: 結局 for example :smiley:

WaniKani isn’t testing you on them (unless you count the items you need to get right to level up). Reviews are for learning too. When you get an item wrong you can immediately see all the information that is available in the lessons underneath it, just think of that as a lesson.

I’m in the upper 30s on here and haven’t felt put off at all by the update. I relearned some radicals and I guess it’s possible I’ll miss out on a burn somewhere along the line. But, like, whatever. I’ve missed out on burns before. Just more time to review that kanji; not a problem unless my review queue gets out of hand.

I feel like sometimes people get caught up too much in the “game” of Wanikani, and anything that hinders their progress–no matter how legitimate the learning need may be–is a flaw rather than a natural part of the system. Remember that you’re not here to beat it; you’re here to get fluent at reading the ~2,000 kanji it teaches. Even if it’s a bit inconvenient now, Wanikani staff seem to believe that the update–which they do after much discussion once every few years at most; it’s not like it’s constant upheaval–will make your, and this probably needs to be stressed, 49 remaining levels of content on the site stick more readily. From what I’ve seen of it so far, I agree.

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Again the information isn’t always available. I use mnemonics to learn the readings.As I mentioned in one of my previous replies…

“If like me you’ve just learned a kanji with the kunyomi in the previous level (考 for example) and all the vocab in said lesson use that reading and then you get to level seven and start on the vocab there (after the changes) then you hit an annoying snag. 考古学 uses the onyomi reading of 考 not the kunyomi which I haven’t learnt a mnemonic for yet despite it saying otherwise.”

In this case, the information in the review simply says I have learnt this reading so I should know it. It does not show the new mnemonic used with the kanji since the change. To learn that mnemonic I have to go to the specific kanji page and look it up. I put aside different times for review and learning sessions.

Admittedly it is a minor inconvenience but it could be simply fixed by allowing us to reset the kanji and vocab affected. That way the things I need to learn would be in the lessons and the things I need to review the reviews.

This post is specifically for people who are finding the changes not as optional as has been said so please remember we’re not necessarily saying the changes are bad or we aren’t going to benefit from them. We are just here to talk about the things we are not happy with in the transition and how it has affected our personal experience using wanikani. We’re not trying to say everyone should be thinking the same way we are. We’re just here to rant, vent and moan a little with people who are of the same mind right now. It helps us get everything off our chest so we can let go of the frustration and get back to whatever it was we were doing before we got annoyed by this.

We didn’t come to this page to be told why we’re wrong. In fact that’s why most of us came here from the main announcement page because that’s all we were hearing on there.

P.s. again this post will be ripe with spelling and grammar errors I have not read it though. Sorry to all you grammarians and spelling bee champions out there :sweat_smile:

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I think the vocab info page has links to the kanji too, so if it says you know the kanji reasons already and you don’t then you should be able to reach the new mnemonic in a few clicks. I think they listed all the changed kanji in the OP of the overhaul thread too. I do agree that it would be nice to go over those in lessons similar to what they did for the radicals, or at least have that option. I’m just offering suggestions based on what they actually have :grin:

Sorry if I’m messing with your rant! When I see a problem I automatically start thinking of ways to solve it :sweat_smile:

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They already said they are going to discuss a kanji relearning tool.

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It’s cool to be honest I’ve basically got over it now but the changes came at a really busy time at work and the two together has meant I’ve fallen behind on where I wanted to be with my reviews. I get that the info is a few clicks away but I generally put myself in a different mindset for reviews and lessons and I set time aside for both. I take my time with the lessons but with reviews I expect them to be quick fire rounds on my way to and from work. When I start having to look up things in that time and mindset it’s not as productive for me :sweat_smile:

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They should have waited until this was ready to roll it out. I don’t think anyone is objecting to learning something new. It’s more that were being tested on things we never learnt in the first place.

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I’ve started doing this although it goes against my moral compass! :rofl:

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They could not have waited, because they hadn’t thought of it before it was suggested by users like you.

If anything, that just shows that doing a small beta release with real users would have helped, but too late for that now :man_shrugging:

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And they basically said they’d discuss it as soon as it was requested. But I understand people want to rant.

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My two cents.
Kanji learning is a long road. So it justs mean it’ll be a little longer.

To learn the new radicals i choose to clear my current level, put leveling on hold an starts learning the new radicals at a regular pace (20rad/day). Then, when the apprentices review queue is more or less cleaned, i’ll start the new level.

When i’ll be there, i imagine i’ll have certainly reviewed the new onyomi of previously kunyomi learned kanji thanks to the review queue.

My leveling will be slowed but who cares? I’m in for a minimum of two years to guru all the kanji and even more to burn them all ( with vocab too ). Plus christmas is around the corner so i’ll have less energy to spare for learning new kanji.

I don’t see this as a nightmare but more as a blessing, because it forces me to slow down and get some rest ( radicals are so much easier to learn ). Plus it’ll help me to clean my review queue, because 250/300 review/day is really unproductive and tiresome anyway. With a bonus (like someone previously stated), i’ll learn a bunch of new onyomi reading which will ease next onyomi vocab learning.

So don’t let this truckload of radicals bums you. At the end of the road, it’ll be a small pause.

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I already use my own for all of the radicals that had different meanings than what they actually meant. So its kind of funny that many of them were changed to what I already had them as. If I was starting from 100% scratch I might not have done that but I have a sensei from Japan and she calls them certain things. But I do have to say I did love the ghost.

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lOl You sound like me.

the thing i didn’t like was that despite having the option to go the old route for all already learned items, the old radicals will not make sense for newly learned stuff - you’ll have to learn the renamed radicals for that.
if i could just continue using the old stuff until i’m done, i could ignore the update completely, which i had thought was an actual option.

so yeah, it’s not a choice, it’s mandatory. the old stuff worked for me, but now it’s all inconsistent.
i’m not happy.

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