Why not make a dedicated topic on the forums (and pin it) for reporting overly-confusing sentences, incorrect translations, etc.? You could give a clear list of guidelines for what types of issues to report, it would allow users to get immediate feedback from other users in case they were mistaken, and I feel like overall you’d get more reports to improve the sentences more quickly.
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It feels like there is an focus on humour or absurdity in many of the example sentences so I just skim through them and don’t really bother to look them up if the meaning is just some joke.
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I think you should be showing basic respect and courtesy to everyone, not just those in authority positions or people you feel have “earned” your respect.
This is unnecessary.
Although their phrasing may have been initially abrupt they then tried to clarify, I think you are somewhat misconstruing their point. I read their point as highlighting that language learning is hard, and that at some point you will have to get used to dealing with ambiguity, therefore you should try become acclimatised to ambiguity earlier to save yourself grief later.
Seriously, unnecessarily gendered and demeaning language.
Wow, this is way out of line. This is elitist and ableist.
Learning a language isn’t a race, you have zero idea what this person’s situation or priorities are, and regardless, they are irrelevant. You shouldn’t be attacking another user’s ability or ‘skill’.
Please do.
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I’m not really someone who has the patience to be nice but I think being super rude isn’t that helpful. I’d hate to see this topic locked when it raised good points from both sides.
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I don’t mind you getting angry with me to be honest. If you would bother to really read what I wrote it would be easy for you to understand that I was saying quite the opposite from what you are thinking.
I used to be a bad learner. I used to be like you and get angry when facing a difficulty. I got drunk and complained hours and hours to my husband on how complicated japanese is. It does not get you anywhere. Because Japenese will not change, Japan will not change, maybe you can win the small battle to make wanikani change their sentences to something lukewarm you can get in any JLPT textbooks. I would be sad about that that is the only reason why I am participating in this discussion.
You can win this battle, but you can’t win the war. Your attitude is not going to get you far, I know it because I was exactly like you. Change your attitude first and suddenly your Japanese gets better.
You know how many foreigners are living in Japan for all their lives (maybe happier lives) without speaking Japanese at all?
Thank you for putting this. I find it really frustrating when people are unwilling to show at least a basic level of respect as their default attitude towards people.
I find it ironic that very few people flaunt their level 60 status as “I know more than you because I’m level 60”, and yet people sometimes look at a level 60 person and assume they are being arrogant just because they disagree on a particular point. But I guess it’s just like any other ad hominem attack, which is to say it’s something people do went they can’t or won’t refute the actual point that was made.
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I hardly read the example sentences on WK. Rather, I look up the word on Takoboto dictionary because it has way more example sentences and then add the word into my Anki Pile with the example sentences I want.
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Goal 1 - Creating A Safe & Inclusive Space
We’d like the WaniKani Community to work together in making this place a safe and encouraging space where people from a variety of backgrounds, whose common interest in learning Japanese can come together.
- Posts supporting racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, ableism or anything that denies someone their humanity will not be tolerated.
- Harassment, threats, and targeted attacks on individual users will not be tolerated. If you feel another user is targeting you in any way, do not hesitate to send us an email at hello@wanikani.com.
Goal 2 - Maintaining Healthy Discussions
Work together to cultivate an environment where people can discuss various topics in good faith, and be open to different perspectives.
- Be mindful and sensitive to the fact that people here come from various backgrounds and will have different approaches and perspectives, from learning Japanese to how they live their daily lives. Do not assume the worst of people who may not have the same privileges and/or access to resources you have, or share your perspective.
- Respect other peoples’ time and interests, and have conversations in good faith. Don’t ask rhetorical questions that will start heated discussions or arguments. Consider whether a discussion would benefit from your input, or whether you would be better off listening.
- Work to de-escalate. If a conversation is becoming heated, avoid adding to that fire. Know when to step back, take a breath and consider what you are writing. Don’t feel like you have to have the last word or keep posting. If you want to drop out of a conversation that you feel isn’t constructive anymore, say so. If someone else tells you they want to step back from a conversation, respect that decision and drop it as well. If a moderator asks you to move on or drop a conversation, do so.
You’ve broken that rule with condescending and patronizing comments.
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It’s worth mentioning, to my knowledge, the Japanese was written by Mami and Kanae (or at least a native has overseen the final product). The creative force, I can only guess, haha. I’ve heard Kanae’s English on a podcast and it is very good. This process is more labor intensive than just taking random sentences from native content and translating into English (there are other sources that do this). Reading through, I feel the quality of the translation is solid even though some are pretty tricky and they take some creative liberties to not be so stiff on the English side….this not easy and not all translation is equal so it take skills on both sides . And seems most on staff have some bilingual capabilities to vet this through. So maybe a little respect for the work that was put here, they really don’t need to put any sentences at all…and no one needs to read them either.
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Since some people showed they like the examples, I think it’d be a bad decision to just delete them (unless they’re offensive or something, which I hope they aren’t?), I think just adding on more conventional sentences is the best. I think if they keep adding on, a clarification on the approximate level of difficulty would be cool too. Don’t even need to use the N1 system, just putting Easy/medium/hard would be cool.
This is mostly for QOL than something needed, I just found myself really confused at first lol
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Wow.
At some point we all have to remember that the cult of the crabigator is just a joke and that criticism of the tool is a good thing.
No need to tell the author that they should probably be reconsidering their interest and efforts in learning the language because they don’t agree with the tool or your own point of view or experience.
Learning systems owe it to themselves to be as easy and useful as possible. Sometimes this is though funny mnemonics, others through useful sentences that provide not just context but also reinforcement of previously learnt material. We all know full well how complicated japanese is and all the anime, and books and newspapers (not to mention all 5 levels of the JLPT test) are there to remind us constantly. So wanikani doesn’t have to act like some sort of rite of passage and paying dues, upping the difficulty unnecessarily in order to discourage the “less worthy” of the language.
This is a community. Let’s try to keep it productive and helpful, not discouraging to specific members.
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Why do I have the feeling you did not read my comments?
I don’t want to discourage you. I just don’t want the sample sentences to be deleted or changed because people are asking for exactly that. In order to explain why I think they are great I explained some of my experiences with learning Japanese and living in Japan. You don’t even need to read it. If it makes you feel better and you need some kind words than please let me congratulate you on reaching level 21, it takes a long time to learn so many Kanjis and vocabulary.
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I read the entire thread, and yes that included all of your comments.
And I don’t need kind words from you or to “feel better”. I was talking about how you actively discouraged the author of the post (and people in general who “can’t put up with ambiguity”). Learning resources should not be ambiguous for the sake of artificially recreating how ambiguous language can be in everyday lives.
And also, “you don’t need to read it” is a mediocre statement. We’re not here to just ignore parts of the app that aren’t useful or we don’t like. I want to get as much as I can for the lifetime subscription that I paid, and not just from the SRS system or funny mnemonics. And since the app includes example sentences, then some of use believe those sentences should provide helpful context and reinforcement of already learned kanji, with words and structures we are likely to encounter in real life (just as we are focusing on Kanji we are likely to encounter in real life). In fact this is what most people recommend when you build your OWN SRS deck in other tools—learn entire phrases that go along with the kanji and are useful down the road.
If you don’t want them to be changed you can go ahead and praise them, you just don’t need to justify what you like by implying that people that don’t like them should just go ahead and quit so they don’t set themselves up for more dissapointment from the japanese language.
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Where did I say that?
I said I like the quality of the sample sentences because they give more context (TPO) than other sample sentences I came across. Actually a lot of work goes into creating so many sample sentences and yes I would like to thank the wanikani team here that they did this effort. And not everyone can do it you need to be bilingual to be able to have a sample with a good translation. Like in many other areas people who are least informed are the noisiest group and my fear is that the sample sentences changes because of this massive attack here.
Show me a sample of a bad sentence and talk about it. I bothered to post here the example of 崩す from wanikani and a textbook from N1 - did I get a respond to this? No. Some people just want to have a culprit for their frustration here I think.
And to the nonsense, all the examples with nonsense sentences where taken from vocabulary that doesn’t need context like frog, eight o’clock, onion or alien.
If it is discouraging for you to hear that passing N1 does not say you are good at Japanese than quite frankly this is your problem, not mine.
To sum my opinion up just in case you are still so emotional that you can not understand what my point is here:
-If the sample sentences are “easy” you don’t learn Japanese from it
-there is nothing like a linear way to learn Japanese starting from easy to high
-at some point to have to jump into the water and struggle to swim and WHEN this point happens is entirely up to you. One point is to use the sample sentences. But you don’t need to. You can go on and on and on and on learning for N1 and Kanken 1kyuu and whatnot but still not being able to master Japanese.
-Offense is taken, not given.
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One more thing.
I was not cynical about congratulating you on your Kanji abilities.
It is a great achievement.
When I started learning there was nothing like wanikani available so I had to write notebooks and notebooks of elementary school Kanjis and it is much more difficult to learn Kanji in that way if you are an adult and foreigner.
Wanikani is a game changer and I have the feeling you don’t know how privileged you are to have such an easy live with Kanji.
And there are real human beings who made this application possible and they should be much more appreciated for what they are doing.
Because everyone who is obviously doing an effort to make other peoples life easier is entitled to at least respect.
So if you already found out on how great a tool wanikani really is, than why don’t you trust them that there is an intention in their sample sentences?
Why should someone doing so great suddenly FAIL so miserably like people seems to think here?
You guys, you know, you should listen more to people who try to help you rather than feeling offended for no reason.
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Aha I see, that makes a lot of sense. I agree entirely with your point, but because this is a learning app, I also think they should add at least one easy example sentence so you can easily understand its meaning, then challenge yourself with the harder to understand sentence.
I think part of the disagreement in this thread with the initial post, is that they have been working to add easy sentences that aren’t silly nonsense in. I’ve never particularly used the sentences, but I’ve started glancing at them the last few days because of this thread, curious what had people so upset, and honestly the majority of what I’ve seen is neither ridiculous nonsense, nor extremely difficult in terms of grammar or construction. The sentences are a relatively new thing though, and the staff is working to improve it, it’s just not their main priority at the moment since there are so many other places to get that additional context for those who want/need it already.
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what example sentences are we talking about here? i dont use the mnemonic ones and the context sentences are kinda all over the place so i dont use those either, so im not actually sure what we’re on about. like the mnemonic sentences suck cause they dont cluster up radicals enough or acknowledge phonetic radicals, and yeah the example sentences are messy but are they really that critical when you’ll probably be checking a dictionary before using a word for the first time?
That’s fair, but I think the main issue lies with the first 10 levels. The creators of WaniKani recommend you to start Genki only at level 10, but then add quite complicated example sentences for the kanji that you will burn way before you reach level 10. I think that especially for these early levels, the sentences could be easier.
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I never got that expression. Are you saying people should be disrespected by default unless they do something which makes them worthy of being treated the way you’d like to be treated? That just seems wrong on so many levels I probably misread your sentiment. Hopefully.
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