As discussed in /t/Team-Leech/14389/1 leeches are a pain in the ass and to me the lack of leech handling is WaniKani’s biggest flaw.
I would love to have a “Auto burn leaches” user script.
Requirements:
Automatically identifies leeches.
Have the possibility to manually add items as leeches.
Can show a list of all the leeches.
During reviews, if a leech shows up:
Tells me that a leech showed up
The script automatically submits/prefills the correct answer
Give me a chance to undo the automatic leech answer in case I don’t want this word to be a leech
Important: Keep track of leaches at a Google spreadsheet/doc
Have a way of resurrecting burnt leaches in case you want to try to re-learn them at a later time
The google integration is really important here. Since it will be answering things automatically I want to have a list somewhere (that’s not tied to my browser cache or a file on my computer) of all the things I have “cheated” with so I can make sure to try to learn them again once I feel ready for them.
This seems like a terrible idea… if you make mistakes on something a lot, you should practice it more and learn the difference, not just get rid of it…
Actually, I’ve wanted a similar feature. Rather than autoburn, I was thinking they could go in a special bin where they wouldn’t pop into your reviews–maybe implementation wise it would be the same.
MysticMaya said...
This seems like a terrible idea... if you make mistakes on something a lot, you should practice it more and learn the difference, not just get rid of it...
It's obviously meant to be tongue-in-cheek, like a script that would just automatically level you up without doing any reviews.
I don’t think it’s tongue in cheek, the point of it would be to focus on the items you’re actually assimilating and then to do a more intense study session on the group of things that won’t ever stick and effectively leech your time and emotional tolerance of failure.
MysticMaya said...
This seems like a terrible idea... if you make mistakes on something a lot, you should practice it more and learn the difference, not just get rid of it...
It's obviously meant to be tongue-in-cheek, like a script that would just automatically level you up without doing any reviews.
No, this is actually a serious suggestion.
I have some words I've been failing for the last 3 years. Studying them more doesn't really help what I need is some distance from them. Not see them in a while and then come back to them with a fresh mind and try to learn them then instead.
It's really frustrating to have the same couple of hundred items that you never learn. Then a few of them comes back for every review and pull down all review sessions to a success rate of around 65%. This makes studying a real chore and makes it much more difficult to learn other new words.
I don't want to ignore them forever, that's why I want the google integration so that I can make sure I have a list of everything I've ignored. Then I can go back and resurrect them one by one and make sure to really learn them then instead of fighting with all at once.
The flashcard program Anki have a similar leach feature and I have in total 15000 cards where 300 are suspended due to being leeches. With a vocabulary of 15k items it's not the end of the world to "give up" on 300 words.
tmahrt said...
Actually, I've wanted a similar feature. Rather than autoburn, I was thinking they could go in a special bin where they wouldn't pop into your reviews--maybe implementation wise it would be the same.
Since WaniKani have no concept of leeches I can't think of any other way to implement it except having the system provide a correct answer. It could also answer it incorrectly all the time and just hide it. But then it would constantly show up in your review queue making it look like you have a lot more reviews than you actually do.
I can’t see myself ever wanting this, but it should be achievable by customizing a reorder script, i.e. have it maintain a list of ignored radicals/kanji/vocab which it automatically hides from reviews (but you can selectively add them back when you want). This is probably better than stuffing with the SRS level by autoanswering it.
ffUQilNfBXcvoFRe said...
It never ceases to amaze me how many people on these forums care more about finishing WaniKani than actually learning Japanese.
Learning Japanese has little to do with being a walking dictionary. I've been using English for 10+ years now and I still encounter words I don't know! And guess what? I don't look all of them up. I'm such a rebel right? In conclusion: don't say such things. Respect your senpai.
ffUQilNfBXcvoFRe said...
It never ceases to amaze me how many people on these forums care more about finishing WaniKani than actually learning Japanese.
Fun fact: There's a ton of words in Wanikani that are not only mostly useless (literally almost never used), but some that are detrimental because Wanikani provides 0 actual context for how these words actually are used in Japan (context sentences don't count, they are bv and large useless nonsense)
Anecdote of something mostly useless: 全日本 ; I used this with plenty of people until someone laughed in my face and said that only sports announcers use that word (I'm hyperbolizing a tad, mind you).
Example of something detrimental: お前 ; Here's Wanikani's description: "But it's done in a sarcastic way, so this word means you. That's right, plain old "you." This "you" is usually used casually, between men." Taking this at face value is an incredibly amazing way to get yourself kicked out of bars (as one guy from Wanikani found out) or just generally look like an asshole.
You know what never ceases to amaze me? That people think doing Wanikani is learning Japanese. It's not. It's learning kanji. And even then, with all the silly nonsense radicals, sometimes it's barely even that. We're not learning Japanese. We're accumulating kanji. So chill out and let people learn how they want. Someone at Level 60 who found a way to skip a hundred items is a lot better off than the guy at level 12 who quit cause the experience annoyed him.
Onto the topic though:
I like this idea. There's some dumb words I'm sick of seeing. The threshold would have to be really high though because it would definitely be pretty tempting. And it would have to be automatic, or else it might be too ease to click it cause you're frustrated like the "wrong button correct" thing. I'd probably use it for those god awful words that have somehow stuck around with me since like level 2.
While researching stuff about Anki I was soooo relieved to learn about the concept of leeches. The idea is that, for a few items that you just can’t seem to get, eventually you train yourself to think “Crap, I don’t know this one” instead of the actual meaning of the word.
Hence, the reason why this script would be effective. Hide those words for a while, sprinkle them in eventually. I’m confronting a lot of my leeches now and it makes every review frustrating, because I haven’t done new lessons for a while–I’m just trying to bump those leeches up so I can have my reviews actually teach me new words instead of wasting time on words that I just can’t seem to get.
The problem is though, I’m sure I’ll guru some of these leeches, and then I’ll mess them up the next time I see them.
If any one is curious, or thinks my leeches are “extremely useful” and I need to buckle down right now and learn them, here’s an example of a few I never get right:
混じる - “To get mixed up in” 交じる - “To be mixed” 交ぜる - “To mix” 混ぜる- “To mix”
I would like to someday have a good grasp on them, but to be honest, I haven’t really encountered these words in the wild, and if/when I do, I imagine the context will be enough for me to get the gist of it. (For me, encountering the words “in the wild” is what really helps me cement the meaning of words I find difficult). But if I never see them, it can be hard.
Maybe try a different approach to these words? I know for the ones that I really struggle with (I’m sure I have at least 100 “leeches” still) I try to use them in conversation/chatting. 計画 was a major pain in my ass for a long time…until I started using it nearly every day in conversation with my friends in Japan, now I feel silly for it being such a problem. I suggest trying to do something similar and KEEP them showing up in WK as often as possible.
nibarius said...The google integration is really important here. Since it will be answering things automatically I want to have a list somewhere (that's not tied to my browser cache or a file on my computer) of all the things I have "cheated" with so I can make sure to try to learn them again once I feel ready for them.
I don't really consider your idea to be particularly helpful (but it would probably work for you); I just find refreshing your honesty about what you consider cheating (I would remove the quotation marks tho) I think is just the second time I see someone acting like an adult around here about that matter.
ffUQilNfBXcvoFRe said...
South said...You know what never ceases to amaze me? That people think doing Wanikani is learning Japanese. It's not. It's learning kanji.
And you're learning Kanji because...?
+1
South said...
ffUQilNfBXcvoFRe said...
It never ceases to amaze me how many people on these forums care more about finishing WaniKani than actually learning Japanese.
Fun fact: There's a ton of words in Wanikani that are not only mostly useless (literally almost never used), but some that are detrimental because Wanikani provides 0 actual context for how these words actually are used in Japan (context sentences don't count, they are bv and large useless nonsense)
Anecdote of something mostly useless: 全日本 ; I used this with plenty of people until someone laughed in my face and said that only sports announcers use that word (I'm hyperbolizing a tad, mind you).
Example of something detrimental: お前 ; Here's Wanikani's description: "But it's done in a sarcastic way, so this word means you. That's right, plain old "you." This "you" is usually used casually, between men." Taking this at face value is an incredibly amazing way to get yourself kicked out of bars (as one guy from Wanikani found out) or just generally look like an asshole.
You know what never ceases to amaze me? That people think doing Wanikani is learning Japanese. It's not. It's learning kanji. And even then, with all the silly nonsense radicals, sometimes it's barely even that. We're not learning Japanese. We're accumulating kanji. So chill out and let people learn how they want. Someone at Level 60 who found a way to skip a hundred items is a lot better off than the guy at level 12 who quit cause the experience annoyed him.
If someone wants to avoid half the items because of reasons, is not our problem you're 100% right. If we want to learn all of them even tho the words are never used (like in modern times), I want to learn them because of the cultural value, to put it simply: because of reasons, so, why does it bother you?
I'm all for a script that would identify leeches for you!!!! Anki has that function and I see no reason why WK shouldn't have it.
"Critical items" are helpful for new items that aren't sticking but rarely expose long-term leeches, which are much more damaging and time-wasting.
I'm not sure the WK api allows for burning something prematurely though, right? Seems that could be used to let people quickly cheat to higher levels, which is something I'm thankful isn't possible on this site.
This is a good idea. There are just some words that aren’t that commonly used and as a result have really vague meanings (Like today, I was trying to figure exactly what 嫌味 really means and looking at all the sample sentences doesn’t help) that I want to dump, but they keep popping up.
South said... Anecdote of something mostly useless: 全日本 ; I used this with plenty of people until someone laughed in my face and said that only sports announcers use that word (I'm hyperbolizing a tad, mind you).
Example of something detrimental: お前 ; Here's Wanikani's description: "But it's done in a sarcastic way, so this word means you. That's right, plain old "you." This "you" is usually used casually, between men." Taking this at face value is an incredibly amazing way to get yourself kicked out of bars (as one guy from Wanikani found out) or just generally look like an asshole.
I use 全日本 constantly, mostly talking about the 全日本剣道連盟. Also it's literally in the name of ANA, 全日本空輸. Yes it's mostly used in Sports organizations, but that would mean it's not useless at all because it's quite common there, and in the name of a number of other organizations.
Also, お前 is not really that big of a deal. It's not てめえ or anything. These sound more like they're your problems than anything else.