Possible to switch off new vocab?

[RuthRainbow]

Hi everyone!

Love wanikani, it’s really taught me a lot.

I’m currently at level 38, but i take it quite slowly. I find that before I can finish a level there are 30+ new vocabularies and kanjis added to the levels I’ve already completed with future levels getting larger and larger, and it just feels like the goal is getting further and further away. If anything it seems like I’m making negative progress .

I was wondering, is there a way to switch off the new vocabulary and come back to it later? I feel like it’s going to become impossible for me to finish at this rate .

[pembo]

Not really

You level up by getting a certain number of kanji to guru level. By getting a kanji to guru, you unlock the vocab associated with it. Levelling up and unlocking new vocab is intrinsically linked.

The vocab is there to reinforce the learning of the kanji. You could use a reorder script to just do the radicals and kanji but you’re just kicking the can down the road. At some point you’re gonna have a pile of HUNDREDS of unlearned vocab which makes your problem worse. Plus, you haven’t done the reinforcing of the kanji.

Unfortunately, I think the advice is suck it up and trust the process. You’ve made it to level 38 already, that is much further than the vast majority of users manage, so clearly both the website and your study methods work!

I would suggest using a lesson reordering script (WK have soft released their own? I’ve seen some murmurs) so you can split your lesson sessions into a few kanji and the rest vocab so you can chip away at the vocab backlog without slowing down your kanji learning. Plus, when you do level up, chances are the review batch only had 2 or 3 kanji you guru’d so the number of new vocab lessons is much less.

I switched to this method about 10 levels and find the learning much smoother. (I do 10 lessons per day with the priority: all radicals when available > 3 Kanji > Fill rest with vocab)

[RuthRainbow]

It’s not that I want to skip the vocabulary altogether I’d just prefer to not keep adding more!

[RuthRainbow]

Thanks for the script tip on lesson reordering though, that will probably help (although I guess I’ll keep getting the new vocab popping up from levels I’ve already completed)

[pembo]

Sadly you can’t! Unlocking vocab is linked to getting guru on a kanji!

As I said though, you’ve got to 38, you’ve done something right and the returns are massively diminishing from here anyway!

You’ve got lifetime, you’re best reducing WK to a minimum and going out and enjoying Japanese content now, you’ll learn so much more and enjoy your time better!

[RuthRainbow]

I think I’ve been very confusing here!

I don’t mean the newly unlocked vocabulary from levelling up kanji. I mean the new vocabulary that wanikani adds across all the levels, e.g. 一ヶ所 that was added to level 10 a few days ago, increasing the number of vocabulary in level 10 from 132 to 133. I think back when I actually did level 10 there were probably more like 110 vocabularies in it, all the levels keep getting bigger and bigger.

[pembo]

Oh that stuff!

No, you definitely can’t switch it off but I’m sure a lesson reordering script will let you choose higher level stuff first

[2tea]

@tofugu-scott

You wont notice any difference if you use the standard wanikani application. However if you visit this url: https://www.wanikani.com/subject-lessons/picker you will be presented with page that allows you to pick and choose which items you want to learn in your next lesson. Feel free to try it out.

N.B. you will need to have lessons available to view the page

You might be wondering why I am posting here too; instead of in a general announcement post. That is because the whole feature isn’t ready yet. We will make our normal announcement once we have completed the remaining parts of the project and it is ready for the general population to use.

since you’re at the level you’re at I can understand your frustration. you can simply not choose the lower level new added vocabs using the picker page. those levels don’t influance your leveling up anymore, and this will help you not breaking your flow.

[simias]

Yeah you can use that script to put content from older levels last.

That being said I find that the new additions are pretty worthwhile if you don’t know them already, a lot of good common vocab.

I definitely understand the psychological aspect of seeing the goalpost move back every week though, I’m going semi-slowly with new lessons these days and I can definitely feel the leveling up taking longer than usual when they add batches of new vocab.

[Dunkelfuchs]

This should really be a built in option for these new words specifically. I was gone (yet again) for a long time and coming back to dozens of additional lessons I already know on top of my piled up reviews has been frustrating.

Of course it doesn’t take much time to do reviews like “はい”, “おはよう” and “うん”, but it adds up and psychologically it just isn’t fun to see even higher review and lesson numbers at all. Of course they are useful, but not to someone who is at level 10, even, let alone someone in the 20s or almost 40s like OP. しょうがないなー

[polv]

While I haven’t tried personally, I wonder if Reorder Omega can filter out by Creation Date?

Queue Manipulator might also be able to.

Something like

// ==UserScript==
// @name         WK no added contents
// @namespace    wanikani
// @version      0.1
// @description  Filter out added contents
// @author       polv
// @match        https://www.wanikani.com/*
// @icon         https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?sz=64&domain=wanikani.com
// @require      https://greasyfork.org/scripts/462049-wanikani-queue-manipulator/code/WaniKani%20Queue%20Manipulator.user.js?version=1279923
// @grant        none
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
    'use strict';
    const maxDate = new Date('2022-01-01');
    wkQueue.addFilter(q=>{
      return q.filter(i=>new Date(i.item.data.created_at) < maxDate);
    }, {openFramework:true});
})();

[2tea]

It creates an unnecessary fatigue, and fatigue is bad for learning flow, and learning in general.
I suspect that’s why WaniKani did soft launch the lesson picker page, give existing users the option, and test it.
It’s bad for advanced users but new users will know it the way it is now, so for them there’s no adjustment. But I do wonder about the workload.

@polv I don’t know about the Reorder Omega userscript, I use Tsurukame and it has an opt in Show Kana-only vocabulary include lessons for kana-only vocabulary that were added in may 2023 option.