Jensentanlo said... 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.いやみ is a pretty common word, and its meaning is not really that complicated. 嫌味を言う, pretty simple.
I mean, I was under the impression that the entire reason for some of the “useless” vocab was literally just to help you with readings. Even if the vocab isn’t useful in conversations you may be having, I personally am able to correctly guess the meaning of so many kanji i’ve never seen before and I feel like i’m even getting much better at guessing when something is going to be rendaku’d. I’m a little sad when I see so many apps with the express purpose of “oops, i clicked the wrong button, but its ok because this will fix it”. Real life doesn’t work that way, and your brain isn’t going to thank you for it. I feel like if you are getting sub 80% on reviews, that IS a problem, but not a problem from WaniKani. It sounds like you may have to rethink your method of learning, maybe go slower or try writing them down or whatever. Cheating is cheating, plain and simple.
I like the idea of burn leaches, but only for vocab. I think that to allow a user to blitz through WK a bit faster and more focused on kanji than vocab is a fair strategy. After all, WK cannot be your sole source of vocab education. As I level up, I think that leaches for me are a larger and larger percentage of my review queue, so they slow down overall progress. I plan to hit all this stuff again via Memrise anyway, but I’m only up to level 5 there.
Astaraela said... It sounds like you may have to rethink your method of learning, maybe go slower or try writing them down or whatever.I'm not sure if taking 1 year (with doing all available reviews each day) to increase 3 levels is too fast and rethinking my method of learning is exactly what I'm trying to do by trying to find a way to deal with all my leaches.
lsh3rd said...As I level up, I think that leaches for me are a larger and larger percentage of my review queue, so they slow down overall progress.I totally agree, and as this article about leaches say "Leeches are harmless on their own, but deadly in packs". It wasn't until I were somewhere around level 46-48 somewhere that leaches started getting really problematic for me.
nibarius said...I'm not sure if taking 1 year (with doing all available reviews each day) to increase 3 levels is too fast and rethinking my method of learning is exactly what I'm trying to do by trying to find a way to deal with all my leaches.I mean, I think everyone has words that they struggle with. I doubt anyone here has a brain that never messes up. And I also did mention that "useful vocab" is not what this site is for. If skipping ahead and circumventing the entire point of the website is your way of dealing with a struggle though, by all means.
When it comes to some particular words that I never seem to learn, and that I've never encountered in real life, and that native Japanese people I ask about the word have never heard, I have a hard time to see what the point is to learn that word right now when i could learn other more useful words instead.
Astaraela said... If skipping ahead and circumventing the entire point of the website is your way of dealing with a struggle though, by all means.Because skipping, let's say, 1% of the vocab is circumventing the entire point of the website.
Aislin said...Do you really think that learning vocab is the point of this website? Because it isn't. It is to learn the readings and Kanji. Which is difficult to do if you just skip ones that you can't be bothered remembering.Astaraela said... If skipping ahead and circumventing the entire point of the website is your way of dealing with a struggle though, by all means.Because skipping, let's say, 1% of the vocab is circumventing the entire point of the website.
Astaraela said...No, I don't think that learning vocab is the point of this website. I know that vocab is mainly there to reinforce the readings. But I do think that it's better for someone to cover more kanji even while sacrificing this one reading here or this one reading there.Aislin said...Do you really think that learning vocab is the point of this website? Because it isn't. It is to learn the readings and Kanji. Which is difficult to do if you just skip ones that you can't be bothered remembering.Astaraela said... If skipping ahead and circumventing the entire point of the website is your way of dealing with a struggle though, by all means.Because skipping, let's say, 1% of the vocab is circumventing the entire point of the website.
Astaraela said... I mean, I think everyone has words that they struggle with. I doubt anyone here has a brain that never messes up. And I also did mention that "useful vocab" is not what this site is for. If skipping ahead and circumventing the entire point of the website is your way of dealing with a struggle though, by all means.I think this falls into the domain of "don't let school get in the way of your education". Wanikani is a tool for learning kanji. It's not for everyone. And how its implemented, is not for everyone that uses it. If you use a tool blindly, you might not be getting the most out of it.
Syphus said...Maybe so, that's entirely possible. :)Jensentanlo said... 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.いやみ is a pretty common word, and its meaning is not really that complicated. 嫌味を言う, pretty simple.
In fact it's not really a problem someone at level 52 should have.
Jensentanlo said...[...] especially since the English word sarcasm doesn't have a negative connotation [...]I've heard others say this, and it makes me curious. It seems the usage of the term may have changed over the last decade or two, because the negative aspect is not only connotative, but denotative.... i.e it's right there in the dictionary definition: "..designed to cut or give pain..", "..bitter, caustic..", "..in order to insult someone, to show irritation..". The only non-denotively-negative use was "..to be funny..", but even then, in my experience, it's always at someone else's expense.
tmahrt said... I think this falls into the domain of "don't let school get in the way of your education". Wanikani is a tool for learning kanji. It's not for everyone. And how its implemented, is not for everyone that uses it. If you use a tool blindly, you might not be getting the most out of it.Great points overall... the real success story with Wanikani is not building a web based application, but an application framework that can suit the individual.
Also, keep in mind, many of the best features in wanikani are the user scripts. Vanilla wanikani is not a comprehensive, feature-rich kanji learning application.
I really like this thread.
I’m not too far into my studies yet, but I can see how this’d be helpful. It seems like every time re-learn 四日 or 八日 I forget the other one because they’re too similar. I felt I had to resort to putting all the numbers into a spreadsheet so I could see them all together and find some other way to learn them. There’s a few other vocab terms I’ve found that seem to be falling into the same boat (年来 vs 来年 vs 年次).
Learning Japanese is frustrating enough as it is… having some way to at least easily identify these and optionally leave them out of reviews would at least compartmentalize the frustration and make it less frustrating to learn all all the others. Feeling successful is a powerful motivator to learn more. Feeling frustrated, not so much.
On the other hand, it’s a handy skill to learn how not to get too frustrated at these things. But that’s not something wanikani helps you do in any way.
rfindley said...Maybe it's a west coast thing. At least in my family growing up, we used sarcasm to communicate in a perfectly normal way.Jensentanlo said...[...] especially since the English word sarcasm doesn't have a negative connotation [...]I've heard others say this, and it makes me curious. It seems the usage of the term may have changed over the last decade or two, because the negative aspect is not only connotative, but denotative.... i.e it's right there in the dictionary definition: "..designed to cut or give pain..", "..bitter, caustic..", "..in order to insult someone, to show irritation..". The only non-denotively-negative use was "..to be funny..", but even then, in my experience, it's always at someone else's expense.
I'm not doubting or razzing you. Language use changes. I'm just curious what sarcasm means to other people nowadays.
double post
wanikani was crashing, didn’t know it was actually submitting sorry