Hi There,
With all the emphasis on SRS and mnemonics for lerning kanji. Is the wanikani native order of things optimal, or are the user scripts correcting a learning pattern with people? Or, does it have no bearing and just makes it easier to tailor the order to user preference and still gain the benfits of the SRS methond?
Thanks,
Jez
Thereās no impact from reordering. Iāve seen people mention that it helps to use reorder to spread apart words with similar kanji, so that if you fail one word, you donāt get the other one right by accident due to being reminded of a given kanji.
I personally donāt know how to get that behavior and I think that getting it right that time means it will then be spread apart from the other word anyway due to how the SRS works.
ā¦ that was a lot to say that it doesnāt matter and itās just a matter of preference (well, except if you abuse the reordering to just skip the vocabulary items, then reordering is bad)
Native ordering is fine as long as you do all of your reviews daily. Scripts are mostly to tailor the experience to the user
Thank you, Jenny!
Thanks, was curious if there was any benefit beyond personal preference.
People often talked about 2x2 reordering. I am not sure.
A while ago I turned off all my scripts (except Phonetic-semantic composition). Am actually much happier with how things work - even when I get wrong answers because of a typo.
I think that for me personally, a lot of the scripts were making a simple thing complicated and that outweighed the benefit.
I would still install No Cigar, though. Typo allowing is just weird and dangerous sometimes (until the team realizes and puts on blocklist).
I used to use scripts and it got me farther than I should have because I would make excuses. Native basically keeps me honest and I can do it anywhere with a PC and browser.
Iām almost done and didnāt use any scripts as it was my goal to solo free climb this wanikani mountain. Having almost done that I think the program works great just the way it is. The scripts definitely allow you to go faster because you donāt have to claw your way through hundreds of vocabulary before you can get to new kanji. And a script for typos would come in handy but other than that the scripts are mostly just fun add ons to individualize your experience.
Iād say itās definitely the latter. Different strokes for different folks.
Personally, I never used any reordering of the lessons, but found the WK native ordering quite optimal. After all, it follows a very clear pedagogical principle of building blocks: learn and guru radicals, then learn and guru kanji where those radicals appear, then reinforce those kanji and their readings (plus learn alternative readings) through learning vocab where those kanji appear. Once guruād, move onto more kanji that relies on knowing the first batch of kanji, and reinforce these with other vocab, thus you level up and go back to learning radicals and continue the cycle.
Due to this, it might be argued that keeping a higher pace will be beneficial for you, since that keeps the corresponding newly learnt knowledge between learning individual radial-kanji-vocab fresh in your mind. Doing things too slow, and youāll end up forgetting the previously learnt steps of this process. Skipping the vocab, and you wonāt reinforce the kanji and miss alternative readings. And going back and doing vocab much later, again, youāre basically learning from scratch again.
But, plenty of people have finished WK using reordering scripts. So, it canāt be said that itās bad for you - unless you missuse them (which there are recurring tales of, so thereās also that 
).
Indeed. Iāve been using a Backlog filter to do the opposite - get all of the pending vocabulary before I start on the next levelās new radicals and kanji. The trailing vocabulary quickly becomes an issue.
Iām a pretty heavy script user. Some of them I consider optional and just personal preference/quality of life improvements, and some of them make WK significantly more doable for me or help me get significantly more out of the program. Here are most of the scripts that Iām using, with short explanations for each of them.
I explain in that (very long) post how and why I reorder my lessons, but basically for me, it really helps me to distribute the kanji lessons throughout the level instead of doing them in bursts. Iām way happier learning kanji at a rate of 3 a day alongside 9 or so vocab instead of doing the default WK order, which entails trying to learn a whole bunch of kanji all at once, then doing purely vocab lessons for a week or so.
As soon as I started using the lesson filter, my accuracy on kanji lessons went way up, and I stopped feeling demoralized upon leveling up and being greeted with like 80 vocab lessons before I could even start on the new level. It also helps me get started on the associated vocab lessons sooner after I guru a kanji. So, no, for me personally, the WK native order of things is not optimal at all.
There are definitely ways to abuse scripts, and the lesson filter script in particular has caused problems for people, but generally the problems come from trying to skip material (usually vocab lessons) and level up as fast as humanly possible. Using the lesson filter script to slow down can actually help you optimize a slower pace so that your learning is more balanced.
Itās not āuser scripts vs. Wanikani nativeā ā you can use scripts quite effectively without affecting standard behavior.
I realize you arenāt saying otherwise, but I feel the need to point out that the huge majority of user scripts are purely informational and donāt affect ordering or the fundamental behavior of the Wanikani system in any way. At most, they relocate, hide, or otherwise modify visual aspects of the UI.
Only a very small number of scripts affect ordering.
I worry that some newcomers might equate scripts with reordering or other non-standard behavior (like do-overs) when most provide often quite helpful supplements to your learning āwithout changing the standard behavior.
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