I just saw a question: 目標. I stare at it for a full minute wracking my brain. I go ok - eye plus umm is it sign? Bridge? I always confuse those two. Ok I think it’s eye and sign. Hmmm. Ok it’s probably もくひょう. So what does it mean? Kind of sounds like target, ok type it all in.
WaniKani goes: yup you got it. Apparently you know this one really well and I don’t need to show it to you for four months. Or maybe ever.
But I don’t really know it, do I. I can work it out, maybe, sure. Or on a different day maybe I don’t make the sign connection and think it’s bridge instead (cause I learned them at the same time and don’t really remember the exact difference any more).
some vocab / kanji come back after a while and I’m like - yeah I really know this one right away, if I see it I’ll know it. Those clearly I should answer correctly (and in fact if I typo the answer I might cheat and say I got it, I use Tsurukame and it lets me do that)
But these ones that I can work out eventually but don’t really know - should I cheat and answer them incorrectly on purpose just to get more practice with them and learn them better?
What about if I just saw this vocab that I didn’t really remember in renshuu or Duolingo or an anime title, looked it up, and now it came up in wanikani a day later. Should I get it wrong on purpose?
Haha no way…get it wrong on purpose??? You’re crazy. Are you flexing on us?? You run the risk of reinforcing the wrong readings/meanings. Use the Extra Study option if you want to do more reviews.
I don’t think it’s bad at all if you need to take a little more time to recall for some characters. That’s natural if you’re cramming a lot of new information in. I wouldn’t worry too much about it, certainly wouldn’t fake getting it wrong!! The audacity…
I don’t think there’s need to get some words intentionally wrong.
The way I do my reviews to prevent such situations, is that I look at the solution every time after I solved it.
I made it a habit, so I could, subonsciously or consciously, retain the most synonymous meanings and alternate readings as possible.
Of course if the complete gist of the word or the mnemonic doesn’t quite make sense to me, I also research the word through stuff like jisho.org or seeing what comes up in google images when I type it. Because the words naturally don’t always translate 1to1.
True knowledge will come from using the language in the real world, reading real Japanese. No need to artificially increase the amount of time you do SRS.
These doubts you have are very normal, but in the end you have tens of thousands of kanji and words and grammar points and idioms and cultural references to learn. If you can “work it out” then it’s probably good enough for now.
The script Double Check has a mark it wrong option. You can answer your items correctly and it you feel the need to mark it wrong do it with Double Check. This way there is no fear of reinforcing the wrong answer.
As simias said, you’re placing too much importance on the SRS scales and how they reflect your actual knowledge. The point is that you should be seeing all the stuff you’re going to need in native content anyways.
Don’t see 目標 for another 4 months on wk? Not a problem. Honestly if you are spending time actually trying to understand Japanese chances are you see 目標 before then anyways.
As others said, no, don’t do it. The key word here is, however, eventually. I personally find that staring for a full minute at a word is far too long (I’ll never get my reviews done if I take more than 5-10 seconds per item). If you feel self-conscious about it, then I’d just time your reviews and set some kind of limit, eg.: this feels familiar, but it’s been 30 seconds and I can’t really remember it, so I’ll just mark it as wrong.
That’s called exposure to native media, which is a way to reinforce your WK knowledge. You should also never get that wrong in purpose.
If I take a long tome to recall something, my brain is really reaching into the deep corners of my vague knowledge, strengthening the neuronal pathways in the process, sometimes building them up from basically nothing. Which means: if it takes long it’s because the connection isn’t strong yet, but you are working on it right now! So good job!
But as others have said, that’s quite the common word, if you start reading now, you will probably see it a 100 times until the next review. You’ll probably look it up a few times though, before it sinks in ^^
Don’t make it harder than it has to be, there’s already enough questions to answer. However if you feel you don’t know it when you take a long time to come up with the answer, perhaps just don’t take that long to answer.
I think the secret to going fast is to not spend too long on a question. If you don’t know it in a few seconds, mark it wrong and move on. Your accuracy will go down a little, but I think in the end you’ll get a lot more questions answered which ultimately is the goal. I feel like it’s better to get one question wrong and nine correct, than one correct and no time for the other nine questions.
When you get a question wrong you still get some mental reinforcement, similar to looking the word up.
How would it be…? Your thought process in figuring もくひょう is correct. Even if you originally don’t remember the word, Japanese kanji works in a way that people should be able to approximate the meaning / reading by individual kanji.You don’t need to purposefully get things wrong just because you don’t have perfect recall on every single word. Even if you forget one kanji that’s honestly understandable, many kanji are similar to each other so in a flash there is a possibility that people confuse it (even Native Japanese can do so). But in practical reality imo it’s quite easy to tell which one is which with the help of context. No need to overthink things and just count your wins and reinforce the logical thought process.
I sometimes write an x instead of the right answer if it’s about to Burn and I want more practice. Not often but I’ve done it. (Tsurukame makes it easy to tell if it’s about to)
But I wouldn’t do it before it’s about to burn. Let the 4 months go by and when it appears again you’ll find out if you know it or not.
in the meantime, you’ll probably see that word in a book at some point if you keep reading and challenging yourself with higher and higher level material.
I think for long-haul SRS like WK, it doesn’t really matter which you do, but I would mark it right, and use one of the self-study extensions to reinforce it, rather than mark it wrong. As others said, encountering it in the wild will be more meaningful.
I actually do what you’re suggesting on jpdb, but I do decks in a very short-term manner, and so have greater incentive for smaller review intervals (time between the next review)
Here I can control whether it passes or fails by using redo for the second attempt (if it’s a typo or a missed rendaku or something), but if I legitimately don’t know it I won’t redo over and over until I guess right. On MM, if I don’t know it I’ll usually redo the reading first and then do the X in the meaning so it’ll shuffle to the back of the pile, and then I know when I get to it that I’ve already failed it and can redo or look at the answer and still have it drop.
Never really considered missing one intentionally that I knew, but I suppose there’s a point to be made for it. I’d probably rather do that while I’m in the lower stages so I review it more, but that’s just me.
You run the risk of reinforcing the wrong readings/meanings. Use the Extra Study option if you want to do more reviews.
However if you feel you don’t know it when you take a long time to come up with the answer, perhaps just don’t take that long to answer.