Ways in which WK has disappointed me, personally

WaniKani personally disappointed me by grading me 66% on my latest review.

Either that or I’m just disappointed in myself.

I agree with you with the radicals though. Sometimes they break things down WAY too much. And that’s what I really blame for my piss poor performance tonight.

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other things i’d have liked:

  • the option to remove “burned” across the board, and for specific items, and just cycle them in every 6 months.
  • a “default mode” that works like it does right now, and a “thorough mode” with optional additional reviews, or better yet, the option to adapt the timers yourself.
  • the ability to review things early.
  • a drill mode for the initial learning process.
  • an “emergency room” for items the program identifies as leech, which then go through special treatment.

lots of great improvements are possible, some of which i’d find way more important than a dashboard overhaul.

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Yes! Give me ghost reviews and let me crank them up to maximum.

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I’m disappointed that I can only burn 金玉 once

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Has 金玉 always been your tribe?

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You can have this. The procedure is explained here.

There is a script for this:

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the site could have those built in though, for people who don’t like scripts. some can’t use scripts either, because they can’t install them at work.

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Holy crap, that sounds way better than Jourm. Pity I missed it. Creating a character in one’s head from scratch is much harder than using something that already exists.

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I believe you’re failing to see how certain mnemonics can have a real impact on the mental wellness of users. I can only make assumptions about your identity, but I ask you to consider that you may not understand the oppression gay and female users experience in their lives outside WaniKani. As such, you don’t know the effect on those users of repeatedly seeing and being asked to remember mnemonics that are words/characters used by some people to violently attack women and gay people. WaniKani does not exist inside an apolitical vacuum, and I think it was a responsible step for the developers to take. Likewise, I think it’s a good thing that they are no longer using an oppressive dictator as a clever and quirky memory device. Hard Gay, boobs, and Joseph Stalin aren’t bad words. WaniKani isn’t asking us to banish them from the dictionary/encyclopedia. You don’t need to partially censor them. But when they are presented as the default mnemonic, it tells certain groups of users “your feelings of safety are less important than some other users’ convenience”.

I agree with you on all your other points.

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Agreed; while Hard Gay is kind of dated, it’s also just old. I find the saber far easier to remember, particularly because most of the words it’s for in the first ten levels are easier to associate with big heroic swords.

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WK isn’t perfect and I certainly have a few problems with it but it’s certainly an effective kanji course.

I went from being illiterate to reading light novels in just under two years.

I still think it’s amazing. I just had to relax and do my reviews on time. No headache about building my own program and managing anki. Conviently available as a web app. Good customer support and a warm community.

Starting and sticking with WK was easily my best choice in my Japanese journey so far.

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Community standards are set by communities, not by the whiniest members of communities. Presuming that words like “hard gay”, “boobs”, and “Joseph Stalin” are damaging to people’s mental wellness and threaten people’s safety is, or ought to be, a good way to be ignored, if not laughed out.

If we’re going to balk over microthreats on the internet, then let’s add creeping moral panic and censorship superficially disguised as concern to the list. After that, if you still want whatever someone doesn’t like muted, you can lead by example.

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I think at level 11 I’m already over 300 Kanji. And with the vocab you actually get to know them pretty well. This took a few months.

When I was in Japanese class, we “learned” Kanji the Genki way. It took forever, made not much sense (just memorization) and I didn’t know much Kanji vocab either. The way Genki “teaches” the Kanji is really an afterthought.

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Would you say you felt like a…BAD apple?

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Would have probably have stayed with the old mnemonics if convenient. Though the option still holds on the ‘meaning’ lessons, the ‘radicals’ tab never shows the old radical meanings so it seemed users were forced to change. And then when I took a break and had to revisit older kanji I blanked out on, it got a bit confusing on what to use from that point on. As many probably do, I still see both since I can’t unlearn it…but a few radicals got better too like net, dollar and dry. But I miss elephant and Ikea…and going to Ikea, haven’t been there in ages.

Got used to the change eventually, alot of new mnemonics were solid going forward for me using the new radicals…just the occasional mix up some pre-purge era kanji that I have to relearn.

Do you mean this? It is still there. I have learned it not long ago.

Elephant radical

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The old elephant is now ‘task’.

I get it, elephant is now elephant…but old elephant looks like the animal and makes for great stories.

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I’m extremely disappointed in ‘busy’ “忙しい (いそがしい)” mnemonic. It says: “You’re busy because you have to take care of your friend’s ice ogres (いそが) this weekend.”, however the first thing that reminded me of ogres is obviously Shrek. What a wasted opportunity, it should just say “Your best buddy Shrek is busy because he IS OGRE (いそが)”

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I totally forgot about Hard Gay until this thread. Why do I know him? Nobody else I speak to seems to remember. What on earth.

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I think most people have repressed Hard Gay because he’s sooooo bad.

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