I have a few questions that are loosely related around when getting the answers right isn’t enough. Such as when to resurrect burned kanji or reread mnemonics.
1. Resurrecting Kanji
When getting a word wrong because of misidentifying or being unable to identify a kanji that is already burned, should it be resurrected?
2. The Importance of Remembering Mnemonics
If I get a kanji/reading correct without remembering the mnemonics, should I reread the mnemonics?
3. Using Radicals as short-cuts
I sometimes think that I’m able to get by remembering the kanji/reading because, for example, when only one of the kanji I’m doing right now is using a particular radical. I see the radical and identify the kanji by process of elimination, and then maybe sometimes I start confusing that kanji with other kanji that use that same radical. Could anyone could share their experience with this?
4. Burning When I Barely Remember
I feel guilty when I burn that I was very close to getting wrong or had to struggle on. I might be torn between whether 2-3 options being correct and then I guess the right answer and burn the card. Should I resurrect the card when this happens? How confident should one be about a card when they burn it?
I have no set rule but if I burn a kanji without feeling I have a good grasp on it, then I might resurrect it. I do this only infrequently though, i.e. when I feel I « guessed » more than I know.
Ultimately I think burning and forgetting a few kanjis is unavoidable and will fix itself with reading practice so I really focus on keeping the journey consistent.
I never resurrect because of a missed mnemonics - usually the primary reason is forgetting the reading and sometimes if I thought of a completely different meaning.
I would never unburn anything, because if I have done the work once, why do it again? It’s not like you are level 60 with nothing else to learn. Remembering item after burning it should be left to reading practice.
The goal of mnemonics is to be forgotten. They are temporary crutches until you build a direct link between written form, spoken word, and associated meaning. If you can remember those without mnemonics, be happy as you have achieved your goal.
I don’t think you can get an item all the way to burned state by guessing it using elimination. So eventually you will make a mistake on it and it will rotate in lower levels until you actually remember it.
Well, assuming you see the item after 4 months, if you can still remember it even if not imediately, I would say you burned it. Don’t guess, though. I consider guessing to be a form of cheating. A test gives you confirmation for the guess, real world will not. Relying on guessing during tests leads to second guessing yourself when you need to remember it.
Well, approach always backfired for me whenever I would learn a new kanji that uses the radical I used to associate with different kanji.
Like, at level 25 I learned 構 and associated it with Lifeguard radical. Worked great, until I learned 購 at level 30. Then, at level 35 I learned 講. And then, finally, at level 45 I learned 溝
Luckily, they all have the same on’yomi reading, but they are all different kanji.
What helped me was making my own mnemonics (a short, one sentenc ones, like 講 – “What you say to a lifeguard - he’d turn into a lecture”) and then make audio records of those mnemonics and listen to them. For example, here are mnemonics I made for level 17:
Do you want to have it in your reviews again? If so, resurrect it. If not, just use that instance to refresh your memory, and then continue on with your life.
If I get a kanji/reading correct without remembering the mnemonics, should I reread the mnemonics?
You don’t want to have to recall mnemonics for every kanji you read while reading a text, so not needing the mnemonic is the preferred situation.
I feel guilty when I burn that I was very close to getting wrong or had to struggle on. I might be torn between whether 2-3 options being correct and then I guess the right answer and burn the card. Should I resurrect the card when this happens? How confident should one be about a card when they burn it?
That’s ultimately something for you to decide. Regardless, what I would do if I did not want to burn the item is to not try and guess, but rather enter something deliberately false.
But another thing to consider is that you don’t often have to guess kanji in isolation. You have the context with you in the wild, so if you would have gotten the kanji inside a sentence with context, I would go ahead and burn it because that’s the relevant part.
I’d say you don’t need to, the mnemonics are a means to an end of learning the items, not a goal of itself. There’s items that I’ve never read the mnemonic of because the reading is obvious from a component, or the meaning is obvious from the combination of kanji in a vocab item for example.
I can read what I’ve learned on wanikani so far (and more) in context, and still there will be instances when I’ll see the most basic kanji in isolation and my brain will go “I got nothing, don’t know this, haven’t seen it before”, because when I started reading extensively the pattern recognition stopped treating kanji as a sole target, I see words and sentences. I believe it will eventually balance itself with enough use.
Even when you burn an item and have no hesitation it’s not a guarantee if you don’t use it. At level 35 what really matters is what happens when you apply what you’ve learned so far, that will give you the most accurate feedback on whether you are able to recognize and understand what you’ve learned, that is (in most cases) the real purpose of studying all those kanji, using them.
There is so much more to learn outside of wanikani, striving for perfection while burning items just makes you focus on a lesser goal. As I always say - wanikani is just an aid and should be treated as such.
Mnemonics are temporary hand holders, you should forget them when you don’t need them. If you do need them again, that’s the time to relearn.
That’s just your brain taking short cuts and then sometimes those short cuts not being helpful, it’s fine, it’ll sort itself out.
This is more tricky, but, I feel that once you have learned something well enough to get it to the burning stage, then just general reading in Japanese will be enough reinforcement - otherwise you’d forget everything you’d burned and the whole exercise would be pointless.
