We are not all American

Oh, and I haven’t looked at the “where are you from” topic, but I know that I personally didn’t bother answering because no one cares if someone is from America on an American website. Wouldn’t be surprised if others thought the same.

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Tosh.0 is referenced in the “Year” vocabulary word, Jeopardy in the “correct” kanji.

I didn’t know Hard Gay either, but at least that was actually memorable when I saw him on Youtube :smiley:

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Jesus what’s the big deal. Make your own mnemonics and add synonyms…

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Are we only allowed to talk about “big deals”? Forgive me if such trivialities offended you… :unamused:

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I see your point. However your post didn’t seem so much like talking about something as lobbying for drastic change…

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Many things already have BE versions, looks like it’s just an oversight. And I’m sure the mnemonic overhaul will be so free of any things that can possibly offend anyone, it will be great.

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I wish I shared your optimism about the offending people part. They do definitely need an overhaul some of them are just plain… unmemorable :joy:

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Well, given we’re coming from so many countries, I think that changing anything would be really diffictult, if is to seek a common ground anyway. :sweat_smile:

I’ve always taken WK as an aid, not a perfect fitted tool. 'Cause , that’s everyone’s “job”, to adjust every way of the road to fluency to your own needs.

I understand it’s easier to people coming from the US, but no biggie for me anyway :relieved:

some adjustment to UK english could be easily be made I think, the rest would prove to be much trouble for little gain on WK team’s part.

just my 2 cents :wink:

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Maybe not financially, but it would definitely improve the site. Sometimes it’s better to make your own anyway, something personal always sticks. As for the spelling thing a UK English word is never so different that it’s gonna be marked wrong.

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“Jeopardy!” has aired in 33 countries, including Italy, the UK and Japan. In 1993, 75% of all television was from the US. In 2015, the BBC said , “American English is the current dominant force globally, like it or not.”

“Tosh.0” host Daniel Tosh was the answer to a “Jeopardy!” question on May 9, 2017. “Tosh.0” has been on American television for ten years with at least three more planned.

You would be terrible at “Jeopardy!.” I’m sorry.

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I mean, at this point what wasn’t an answer (well, question) on Jeopardy? Tosh.0 might be relevant in the US but it’s not internationally known as say Rick and Morty which has been on the air for much less time, so I think his point still stands.

I’m not bothered by the use of a few american-centric mnemonics but I think it’s something for content creators to consider in the future.

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Unfortunately, “most of the world” is irrelevant in this context. What matters is the demographic that uses and would use the site. I would suspect that most of them are aware about what Jeopardy is. And if they aren’t, they get the benefit of a) learning something new, b) having a more memorable mnemonic because they would have spent time learning about Jeopardy. At least they rarely use anything as relatively obscure as “The Big Questions” or “Mock the Week”.

I’m not American myself, but once changes of this type start, they never end. Aa it is there is an abhorrent and absurd demand from a vocal minority to make mnemonics “politically correct” and the team is caving to that, from what I can tell. If they cave in to things like this too, they’ll be in for a fun ride with all the new demands that’ll start popping up.

Now, with regards to spellings, I do agree with you that accepted spellings should be… Well… Accepted.

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Handling the spelling differences makes sense, which is why it’s already implemented, but I agree that the other requests are absurd. I do think some of the names for the radicals can be a bit strange, but that’s never stopped anyone.

OP’s tone is very passive-aggressive and bitey. Just reading the earlier posts irritates me.

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I think criticism is okay, but sometimes it crosses the line to “why is this website not the website I would’ve made” territory.

Too much time spent on complaining and not enough on learning kanji.

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Everyone* knows that the only Tosh mnemonic should be Tosh from The Bill.

*British people who are over about 35 :wink:

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Clearly different people are irritated by different things. Personally, I don’t care about “politically correct” mnemonics. In fact, KKK mnemonics, references to Jesus etc. were memorable and overall good mnemonics. On the other hand, I am irritated by US-centric mnemonics/spelling as the whole point of a mnemonic is to be relatable. I don’t mind having to search for a word I don’t know, but that’s not the point: the problem is that if it’s a show I’ve never seen I won’t relate to it, and hence won’t remember its name and the sound it’s trying to make me remember. As for the audience, I am quite sure that most people who live in other countries never heard about Tosh.0. There are good scripts for alternative mnemonics, and I would gladly use them, unfortunately on mobile I don’t know how to install them (and probably it’s not possible), hence the suggestion to change the mnemonics to make them more international (there are plenty of things known all over the world, no need of referencing to obscure US-only memes). Alternatively, they could integrate the script to access different mnemonics into “vanilla” wanikani, so who feels insulted by references to KKK or Jesus (not me) or annoyed by US-centric mnemonics (me) can just switch to other mnemonics, even on mobile (that is how many people use Wanikani).

As for the passive-aggressive attitude mentioned above, I don’t think I’ve been “passive-aggressive”, but I imagine that even about this there are different sensitivities. If someone felt offended/irritated by my comment I am sorry, on the other hand I definitely found some answers irritating, but I tend to prefer to stick to the topic rather than deviating in ad homine attacks that are not productive for the discussion and only create an (unnecessarily) tense atmosphere. That said, I sent a suggestion email as suggested by someone above, maybe it’s the best approach anyway.

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That’s a good point. The other way of seeing that is that complaining about a bad mnemonic make it easier to remember. I probably would have never remembered the Tosh.0 show (and the 年 reading とし) if I hadn’t written this post and complained about it. The irritation linked to the mnemonic and the obscure show it mentions made it relatable and hence memorable :smiley:

Mnemonics are never going to work successfully for everyone; different things will be memorable to different people.

You can add your own mnemonics, add mnemonics from Kanji Damage (there’s even a wanikani extension for this iirc), Hessig, whatever ultimately works for you.

For what it’s worth, I’m a New Zealander, speak ‘British’ english, and really don’t mind the American references.

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If you are on Android you can search for “Tampermonkey” in the Play Store, I haven’t used it myself but some people told me that my userscripts work for them on mobile. If you use iOS you are out of luck, Apple is more restrictive and doesn’t allow “non-store” code to run on your device.

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