Questions on pacing and review accuracy

[sporadic]

@sazaland

Is the self-study quiz a userscript only feature? Also no, other than occasionally mixing up the slide brothers from Katakana I learned kana years ago through Anki, and retained that well. But I didn’t really have anything past kana when I started WaniKani.

Yes. You can find it here. You’ll also need this one to select leeches. I use it mainly for leeches, but sometimes I’ll review current level kanji if I’m having a lot of trouble sticking.

@sazaland

I find I’m probably getting tripped up a lot on on vs kun reading too, again mostly in vocab: I don’t seem to be really learning the rules or building pattern recognition so much as rote memorizing the whole item as presented(and then being unable to make the connection when a similar but different item shows up).
It may have to do with the high number of exception readings in the early vocab, where kun is used when on would normally be used, vice versa, or some totally different reading is how it is for this word. Basically I’m not recalling the rules because I rarely see them followed.

So, I did Remembering the Kanji years ago and have forgotten most of it. It only drills the meanings, though. I’ve also had a bit of Japanese elsewhere. So the early levels of WK for me were really easy.

Without that background, those first few levels have a lot of gotchas. Numbers have so many exceptions and when to use each reading for 人, for example. You probably need to brute force/make up additional mnemonics for those. There have been a few threads on rules for 人, 日 and 月 that can help. They’re not really random, and knowing the rules will help. My trick was to pick a specific mnemonic for each reading that I incorporated into the vocab mnemonic to help. For me, にん is ninja, じん is djinni for 人, for example. Create ones for contractions, long/short vowels and rendaku as well. That can really help.

I recommend reviewing the readings when you hit the kanji lesson, but only focus on the primary one. Learn the others only in context. That keeps the brain melting to a minimum.

I found a lot of the issues that seemed super annoying in the first levels just… go away as you get further in. You will build a sense for when contraction will occur, for example. And when different readings are going to occur. But if you’re like me, that won’t really kick in for a few more levels. And then you’ll find new things to gripe about, trust me. No spoilers, though.

A few last things:

1. Persevere and these problems will pass.
2. This is brain exercise. Your brain is right now a couch potato when it comes to Japanese. It’s ok that it’s a little hard at the moment. Give your brain some time to build up mental muscle.
3. Learning the kanji is a marathon, not a sprint. Pace yourself so you don’t burnout. You can’t know your pace right now, since you haven’t built up enough review backlog. But you’ll get a sense for it over the next several levels.
4. Once you feel you’ve hit a comfortable pace, stick at it. Only increase speed/intensity slowly. Doing a bunch of lessons quickly leads to a tsunami of reviews later. You’ll drown.
5. On the other side, slow up if you feel like you might get overwhelmed. Finishing slowly is hugely better than not finishing at all.
6. Have fun and good luck!