My mnemonic is silly, but it worked well enough for me to burn both of them without missing a single review, haha.
In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Prince Zuko is obsessed with restoring his honor. Firebending is tied to the sun, and 光 = sunlight. So if 光 is first, I think of Zuko, which means it must be honor!
The way I tell them apart is that honor tends to be viewed as a positive thing, whereas glory can have negative/selfish connotations… so if you put prospering before light (aka good), then it’s glory.
光栄です is such a common line you’ll learn it eventually.
Also.
アルストツカに栄光あれ！
(or the million other variations you hear in anime)
I learned about userscripts from one of the lvl60 posts that was linked in an email when I signed up, and have been using them long before I started looking at the forum. There does not seem to be an end to the number of ways I can misspell words like “icicle” and “rhythm”, etc, so doublecheck is a must have for me. I also really like the community mnemonics script that often has alternative mnemonics for when the main ones don’t click with me.
I don’t use double check. i only used one script: lesson filter. which i wouldn’t need at all if they wk vanilla had more options for how users would like to get lesson batches.
But questioning whether people are “cheating” by using the typo script - idk does it matter? they’d only be cheating themselves. i forgot to turn off rikaikun on my browser the other day…
idk if i wanted to “cheat” at wk there’s a million ways to do so without a typo button.
I’ve tried to rationalise a reason (not saying it’s the reason WK don’t have an undo feature, just thinking of any reason) and I’ve thought of maybe two plausible reasons.
You learn about WK being a great tool for kanji learning, so you start using it trying to learn kanji for an upcoming exam (JLPT or something). You, naively, make liberal use of the undo feature “oh I was close enough” “I was tired, I would have gotten it correct if I was well” etc etc.
You get to a level where you’re supposed to know all the kanji for N5, you take the test and flunk it. You didn’t actually know the kanji because you cheated yourself out of the learning.
So off you go around the internet and telling everyone how bad WK is, they take your money and don’t teach you anything. They don’t offer what they promise, blah blah. It’s just bad avoidable PR. Plus you lose that person’s sub, and possibly future ones.
(WK could lose subs removing 3rd party script functionalities too, I know)
The second reason is pretty much related to the first. By not having all these extra features, you have a ‘fool proof’ system. It works one way, and one way exactly (which I know isn’t going to work for everyone). Beyond opening a second window and searching for answers you don’t know, there’s strictly no way of cheating. You’re using WK exactly as intended, using only the features it has, you’re guaranteed to experience WK as the devs developed and also the same system that everyone else does. Vanilla WK is very singular in its approach. You’re given a prompt, you answer it, it then checks if it’s right or wrong. There’s no ambiguity. “Am I allowed to use undo here? Will I be cheating myself?” etc
WK can then advertise that they have this system, and it works exactly this way, and does exactly this blah blah blah They don’t have to worry about 2 users having different experiences (beyond ability level and speed of completion)
(The discussion about ambiguity and the choice of radicals/mnemonics/on vs kun/primary meaning/etc is beyond the scope of this post)
Whether or not I actually agree with these, I’m not going to say, it’s not that kind of debate. I’m just trying to present a ‘non’-biased (I’m not pro WK but naturally their reasons are going to be pro them) discussion as to why WK doesn’t have a native undo button.
This is clever!
I always have issues with this one and I think this is weird enough to stick in my head. Thanks!
No, I get it. I didn’t mean to argue so much with you so much as with the concept itself or general thinking about “limiting cheating on WK” which I think is an interesting topic.
I agree if you cheat at the site, flunk your N5, and then blame WK, yeah, dick move.
So yeah I think you’re right in terms of what’s behind the rationale for not implementing it as part of the site proper. What drew my attention was really that I think what you’re saying gets to the heart of things: is WaniKani a learning tool or a game?
(Spoiler alert, I know, it’s an SRS platform, it’s a little from column A, a little from column B)
If WK is a “game”, then yeah the rules matter. What “level” you’re at vs other “players” matters. How fast you’re speed running the material matters. How well you can force yourself to learn adapt to the game being played is what matters. And making everyone subject to those same kinds of errors matters. Individual learning styles are largely irrelevant. Stop complaining. Git gud.
But if WK is a learning tool, accessibility matters. Some degree of customization is important. What level you are or how fast you go is less important than “is this a tool that is effectively teaching you kanji in a way that suits your learning needs and that makes you want to come back and work at it every day.” If you wanna cheat, go for it, you’re only cheating yourself bc you’re not actually learning, but that’s your call.
Like I hinted at before, I think the reality is somewhere in the middle. I use Bunpro who I think takes things to the other extreme; it’s constantly implementing different features and you can customize a ton and in the end it’s just not structured enough to pull me back ever day. I cant even use Anki because it’s TOO customizable, I’m not that saavy, or I’m too ADHD, or idk, too old, but it just overwhelms me.
So I do actually like the way WK “forces” me to do a lot of things “their” way. And I like the idea of scripts to allow people to customize specific things that I agree could reasonably argue prevent rather than enhance the core fact that you need to memorize this stuff until you know it enough to interact with native material, which is where you’ll actually be learning it as part of language acquisition.
My personal opinion is that WK treats itself a bit too much as a game with rules everyone has to play, which is why they don’t incorporate basic customization options for the site proper. There are far far FAR too many level 60s who admit that’s how they treated it, too. And the ones who post accuracy numbers at 95%? Yeah sorry I doubt they learned all those kanji for real. Because learning REQUIRES mistakes.
And speaking from personal experience, that’s why i don’t mind not having a typo feature. I actually “like” getting things wrong, bc it means I have more opportunities to learn it. I mean I don’t LOVE it, I like feeling smart like anyone else, but I’m also here to learn kanji so I can read Japanese. It’s why I bought a lifetime. Like a fucking chump.
But I don’t begrudge others who use it, and given its massive popularity along with the fact that it lets you make English typos and can tell when you failed to double click “n”…and because I don’t presume to know how other people learn best. AND I think discouraging people is a greater threat to people making their reviews a regular habit and learning.
Which is why I find it frustrating that WK would decide “we want you to deal with typos setting you back and frustrating you bc we’ve decided that’s best” when they already know how many use and ask for it, but also indicative of a larger attitude toward their userbase which is that we are a bunch of gamers trying to level up than people trying to learn a foreign language.
OK this ended up being way longer than I meant it to, I need to cut back on the Red Bull.
Typos are a big enough issue to be very, very frustrating. If you fail a burn review because your finger clips the backspace key as you’re going for the return key, you’re going to be annoyed.
That’s before being dinged for typing “conscious” instead of “awake”, and all those things.
Some thoughts, as the native Wanikani trying to handle typo can go both ways.
Nonetheless, there is no user warning list nor block list. Also, pre-filled warning / block / and some of the synonyms’ list, aren’t visible. After all, trying to handle typo also happens from that invisible list.
Not to mention fingers going too fast and slipped through that mistaken item.
Actually, I want to put some vocabulary readings and Kanji readings in that warning list, both for previously right and previously wrong.
Maybe Wanikani itself is also locked into its previous thought of how to handle typo.
Yeah, totally get what you mean on some of those vocab words, especially the pairs.
I only remember this one because 光栄 actually comes up a good amount in period drama (or, you know, fantasy pseudo-period stuff) stuff as the sentence “光栄です” which is usually translated as “what an honor” or “I’m honored” (or if they are just meeting, “It’s an honor to meet you”) and so it sticks in my mind as honor.
論理 and 理論 are in my leach pile. 
Both of them I always just get from context which it is when reading something, but I can’t seem to come up with a decent mnemonic to actually remember which is which.
論理 pairs well with things like 物理 or 不合理.
理論 pairs with 反論 or 持論.
tbh, I recall 光栄 from 光栄です, but I made quite a personal mnemonic for 栄光.
I remember 論理 vs 理論 by that ろんり sounds a bit like “lonely,” which starts with an “L,” and so does “logic,” thus 論理 is “logic” and 理論 is “theory.”
With 光栄 vs 栄光, I got lucky that I was already familiar with the KnB character song 栄光までのランアンドガン “Run-and-Gun to Glory” before I got to them, so I just remember which was in the song. (And then a while later I started playing DQXI and came across 光栄です.)
My mnemonics are:
論理 - when using logic you start with established theory and derive your reasoning from that.
理論 - when coming up with a theory you need to reason first.
^ I hope this helps 
The problem is that you want to use an opinionated tool, because you find Anki overwhelming, but then WK doesn’t align with your opinions.
Either find an another opinionated tool that aligns better with your style of learning, or bite the bullet and actually learn how to use Anki.
Anki already works out of the box and the default settings are good enough. But say, you want to customise intervals, or you want to be required to type, or you want 3way cards, etc. It takes maybe half an hour to research how to do this things - if we’re generous, maybe a couple of hours.
That’s a drop in the ocean compared to how much time one spends on learning Japanese. So I never fully understand why so many people seem reluctant to use Anki when the task of learning Japanese is so much bigger than this one small hurdle. (And it’s not about Anki itself, there are other tools like Memrise and Supermemo and even Kitsun that probably also work well.)
There’s a certain learned helplessness when it comes to software users. I would encourage people to empower themselves in order to make themselves less dependent on software companies.
(Yes, this is my big pro open source software “Stallman was right” rant)
edit: Actually, this could be addressed to myself as well. I powered through WK because it’s what I started with and I didn’t want to switch, but it might have been better to just switch to something else at some point. Well, in any case, with the apps etc. I managed to make the system sort-of work for me but I’m definitely glad to be done soon.
Hey ekg! Thanks for the ping! Making the site more accessible is on our radar, although we have no current timeline on when we can complete these projects. We do, in fact, have a small but dedicated team. I do want to assure you that it is on our mind though and we have made some changes for the better.
In the most recent update, we have added alt text to radicals that are images along with some changes around browser compliance. We used to override some browser functions, but in this most recent update, particularly how the Enter key is utilized, we have made changes to be more compliant with standard browser practice.
Scott explains it pretty well in this post.
Let me know if you have any more questions!
-Nick at WK
Just glad to hear you all working on this and how that might improve lives for WK users! ^>^ Keep up the good work!
I’ve decided to try “raw” WK one more time and I still don’t understand how anybody can use it without an undo script. Random list of things that I failed during my last batch of review:
That’s for a batch of like 30 reviews.
This is absolutely unusable for me.
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