SRS questions

  1. I am assuming that the SRS score for a word gets docked the same amount no matter how many times we get it wrong in that review session (i.e. mistyping the reading vs getting both reading and meaning wrong vs taking twelve attempts to type the reading correctly … all have the same effect, yes?)

  2. Assuming yes, is there any disadvantage to making a second recall attempt without looking at the info? By which I mean – if I mess up once, either because of a typo or because I used the wrong pronunciation (especially an on/kun mixup) or forgot rendaku or whatever, but I know what it’s supposed to be (or at least think I do), is there any negative consequence to trying again, before resorting to revealing the answer? It seems like it would be better to try to recall it on my own, but not if it drops more SRS points.

  3. Do items that unlock ever un-unlock? That is, getting a radical or kanji to guru unlocks kanji or vocab that use that element. If I get, say, a radical to guru, put the new-kanji lesson off for a bit, and then mess the radical up on the next review so it bumps back down, the kanji is still available to learn, right?

  4. There are some radicals that are named for their kanji, and some that aren’t. I find that sometimes I go on autopilot and do the kanji (e.g. 本 radical as book instead of real, 文 as writing instead of doll). I have enough faith in WK that I know it’s useful to retain the “weird” meanings for the radicals, but I keep being tempted to add the kanji as an alternate name. (So far I’ve only done one synonym, allowing 久 to be raptor enclosure.) Is that a bad idea?

  1. I believe it is set up that an item drops two SRS levels each time you fail a review. It does drop more if you fail it more than once in a session. Could be that it drops 1 level after the first time, but either way it drops each time you fail it.

  2. See above

  3. No, they do not lock again once they have been unlocked.

  4. It will make mnemonics easier to remember if you learn the WK name for the radicals, but other than that no, not really.

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  1. They are going to add all the kanji meanings as invisible synonyms to radicals at some point. It’s part of a major update to the radicals that has been in the works for a long time. For what it’s worth, 本 does mean real. It also means book. And origin.
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it’s probably worth trying to remember 久 as ‘long time’ because that is what it will be in the vocabulary: 久しぶり (long time no see) and 久し (long time) when you get to the vocab. It’ll help you remember the vocab much more easily later. I encountered exactly this problem with the same kanji.

I suspect after writing about this particular kanji on here though you’ll suddenly find it easier to remember :slight_smile:

  1. Yes, they all have the same effect, unfortunately. When your item is at a guru level or above, it gets bumped down 2 levels. When the item is apprentice level, it gets bumped 1 level every time it is gotten wrong. This happens even if you get it wrong in the same session. This is good.

  2. This is something I’ve found really dumb in the system. I see no objectively good reason for a second review right after you’ve gotten it wrong. It’s a great way to screw someone up again and bumped then further down, but in terms of learning, lessons are more valuable. I would suggest a lesson review session at the end of a review session, where all the items that were wrong are reviewed properly instead of the status quo.

  3. They do not relocate. This is also odd, but I guess that’s what they chose. I would relock items and throw them back into the lesson queue. Any items that depend on a relocked item would get their SRS level reset to 0 and would also get relocked.

  4. I have never had a clear answer for that. The weird words help for mnemonics, but they are extremely annoying when you get them wrong by putting in the meaning if the kanji.

HTH

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To answer #1, I believe the formula is RoundUp (wrong answers / 2) * penalty where penalty is 1 if the item is Apprentice and 2 if the item is Guru or higher. Therefore you will not be penalized more for a second wrong answer, but you will be penalized for a third (and fifth and seventh and so on).

I can confirm that a second wrong answer won’t drop the SRS level more than one penalty because I do what you’ve described in #2 all the time. But I’ve never attempted a third time because I don’t want to risk getting an additional penalty.

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@seanblue is correct regarding #1.

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Sometimes, I do multiple wrong inputs after I got a review item wrong the first time, so that it drops down to apprentice 1 for more exposure.

I wish I could set items to apprentice 1 without having to do a review on it.

Sometimes I do a review wrong because of a kanji in a vocabulary. But its not the vocabulary I need to review more its one of the kanji its made of :sweat_smile:

How many years now?

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You mean like this feature request?

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:star_struck:

For me, that would be horrible! Just imagine you get a radical, that has a crazy mnemonic meaning and not the real Kanji meaning, wrong and kicked back to apprentice and all the Kanji and the vocab associated with it go back to zero as well, although you know them… I wouldn’t like that at all and it wouldn’t help me to learn anything, just get me frustrated. ^^

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EDIT: By now I’ve realized that the only thing that changed was the confusion in my head :exploding_head: :scream: :rofl:
Nothing changed with the locking and unlocking behaviour, I just managed to really really confuse myself with all the new radicals and moved kanji and stuff… Sorry to everybody who got confused from my message as well!

[was: This seems to have changed at some point: I just noticed that a kanji that was unlocked for me (I can still see it in the “recently unlocked items” list) is now no longer available in my lessons queue because I dropped the underlying radical to Apprentice 4.]

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But is this really a global change? If you are referring to 僕: that was changed during the recent content updates, maybe this is a special case related of that?

I don’t know if they would change such a main feature without announcing it. Panic and chaos would ensue :wink:

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Hm, well, good question indeed :slight_smile:

Yes, I am referring to that radical + kanji.

OTOH, why would they make a special case just for that one? …

[EDIT: No need for help any more…]

It was moved to a different level.

僕 was moved from level 44 (I think) to level 12 and you are in between those two. That’s what makes me think this is a special case related to the recent changes.

Well, I’m thinking about it like this:

Moving 僕 to a different level is a change in the data underlying the WaniKani system. That’s supposed to be a pretty straightforward change: you just associate that piece of information with a different level. And from that point on it should not be special at all; it should just behave like all the other radicals and kanji in any level.

Having a special re-locking treatment for this particular kanji would require two important additions: Firstly, you’d need to mark the moved kanji as “special” (why would you want to do this? when would you be able to remove that information? etc). And secondly, you’d need to implement the special re-locking treatment. Which is a code change. And this is not straightforward at all: Introducing special cases is always nasty and risky.

Of course I’m just speculating here based on my general experience; I don’t know anything about how WaniKani works under the hood. But if I were a dev in their team, I would strongly wish for it to work like that :wink:

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