Hi all. I noticed with WaniKani that if I refresh before putting in the correct reading and English meaning the system won’t count my mistakes against me.
On the one hand this slows things down because I have to keep doing the same kanji to get things right before I “lock in” my answer. On the other hand, it feels like I’m going faster because the system isn’t counting my mistakes and I do extra repetition for those that I keep getting wrong.
However, I can’t figure out what is more time efficient. Should I just make the mistakes and let the system record these or should I not “lock in” my answers until I get them right? I only ask because sometimes forcing myself to get the right answer is extremely frustrating and time consuming (or at least it seems it is).
When you refresh to get the right answer, the item progresses in the SRS system.
This can lead to items going pretty high (Master or Enlightened) although you don’t really know them.
Ultimately, there is a risk to end up burning items you don’t really master, or getting Master/Enlightened reviews that you will consistently fail because you didn’t acquire them the intended way.
Personally, I think it’s better to let the SRS system handle it: failing an item means it’s not ready to progress further, and you will have more chances to get it right.
You can still safely refresh when you fail because of a typo, as it has no consequences on the learning process
You’re not supposed to force yourself to remember the answer, it’s not the idea behind SRS. You’re supposed to get rid quickly of what you know and get more exposure to the items you don’t remember until you do.
There are scripts and mobile apps that have a skip and undo options in them, but the idea behind srs is to put less time on reviews not more. If it takes more than a few seconds to remember and you don’t remember it the second time just move on and let SRS do its thing.
You’ll know when an item is really problematic when it becomes a leech (you fail it forever) and in most cases the trick is to relearn it outside of the reviews, it’s usually a mnemonic problem (You can see examples of dealings with such leeches here - Confusing Mnemonics and Leeches Help Thread).
The part you need to give the most attention and devote time to is when you do your lessons, read slowly, look up for clues that will help you to remember the item, you can write it down, anything that will make you fully engage with it will help you with putting less time into your reviews later.
I just skim the lessons, and do that the first time I fail something, usually in apprentice 1 (or if I can’t even remember it long enough for the end-of-lesson quiz). Some of the lessons, I’m just going to remember with no effort, and I can’t predict which. Minds and memory are weird things. In any case, I let the SRS tell me which ones to STUDY-study.
Skimming for me would put it in binge mode, like any other content I read/watch and forget because there’s so much information my brain treats most of it like garbage.
In my case slowing down changing mnemonics where I know even one word would make it stick better and doing a mock testing before clicking quiz mode is basically making sure I’m really reading what I’m reading + writing it down. Still not a guarantee I’m paying attention to what I’m doing ‘cause minds and memory.
The amount of items I need to study again significantly decreased this way, but I can see how it can also work the way you do it, I’m simply trying to avoid going over items info again outside of doing lessons.