Well, I didn’t reseted but

Well, I know more than a few of people that reached level 60 here have came back to reset the account and start all over again (which honestly always felt to me like a self whipping thing to do) :sweat_smile: .

For a few months and, even more so recently, I actually see a logic in this, as I truly think that whatever the method you’re introduced to kanji… it’s only that, an introduction.

I think you graduate from WK with a blurred vision on a lot of kanjis with of course a more solid knowledge on the ones that are common across all exposure.
This is equipment enough to set yourself to strive at doing whatever floats your boat actually, so I feel it’s mission accomplished for a lot of people.

With this in mind and adding the fact that I started writing on a regular basis as part of a Shodo course lately, I have let this month to go over to see for myself what, if anything, was necessary to set some solid grounds in the writing department.

Finally I’ve decided picking up my old RTK book work over it whitin a period of 2-3 months.
Besides, as almost all kanji now have vocab associated in my mind, with more than a fare share coming from immersion over the last years, I feel I can even prescind of another language altogether to go over the reviews of the kanjis this time. So it would be a monolingual version of it. :crazy_face::muscle:

It actually feels like is going to be something pleasurable this time, as the characters aren’t new, I’m mostly focused on writing and systematically deconstruct the components without caring for mnemonics or associated vocab for the most part, and overall I can relate to an activity I’m insterest in, not just like part of the entry fees to get into the language.

Extra interest to me this run will be to practice cursive writing as I review, and that way get the hang on how the components get simplified, which is one of the parts about writing that has hit me the hardest when assisting to classes (I see I’m struggling to even recognize a lot of the characters I’m suppose to copy during the exercises… which in itself it’s not part of the exercise :man_shrugging:).

Anyway. I’ve set myself to go over a deck I’ve altered a bit to fit my purposes.

That goes like this.

Front side with my keyword (the one that strikes me as the one I can relate to the character the most)
Some sample words if I can come up with a couple too.

00

Back side

Key words + character going with common fonts and also some cursive ones.

So basically I’m now testing if I’m able to produce the kanji with the clues or not… as a side “trick” will try to replicate the cursive font too :sweat_smile:


Anyway, I did my first 30 items today… those felt like a breeze… I see if the rest go so smoothly during the next months.

Anyone here has done something similar? People reseting levels after Lvl.60. Do you alter the way you go over WK the second time?

It will be interest to hear how it feels going over this kind of method once there’s a more solid ground than in the first “lap”.

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First time going through WK, so I have neither reset nor changed the way I go about things, oviously. :stuck_out_tongue:
Before I came to Japan (and started WK :joy:) I used to do a variation of RTK and also write out Kanji and various words and phrases that came up in my Anki decks, so I have some limited writing practice. (It’s a skill I’m rapidly using, but which makes deciphering handwritten Kanji a smidge easier maybe. Sometimes. Not.)

I have been planning to do something similar to what you’ve set out to do, though! When I’m done with WK (or more likely slowing down - I can’t see myself going full speed when the pay off slowly starts to get less, so might as well redistribute some of that time to more fruitful studies. Won’t hurt me to take a couple month or even a year longer to finish.) I want to go through the Kanji again, this times with writing practice in mind. Maybe build the cards on example sentences or just fill in the “blank” example words that make the meaning clear.

I’ll definitely be taking your approach to the presentation of the Kanji on the backside though! It seems incredibly useful to expose yourself to these various fonts!

Sorry I can’t give you anything useful relating to your question. :slight_smile:

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Yeah, actually I think I’ll go looking for even more fonts as I go along. “izakaya menu” hard … :joy:

Seriously, will ask at the academy about that, seem like a really usefull and yet simple thing to add.

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If you want to reinforce the kanji in a new way, Kanji Kingdom from JALUP is something people have been successful with.

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I went over WK already… this is my new way :sweat_smile:

Thanks though, I’ve checked Adam’s products too, and as a second run it’s not exactly what I’m looking for. It’s in english for once and lacks the possibility to deal with extra fonts, which I’m specially interested this time.

that and those US$100 in the price tag…:face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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I still have a long way to go with wanikani but I plan on learning to write the kanji too. I find it that the kanji that I can reproduce are also much easier to recognize even when written in those crazy fonts. So the izakaya handwritten menu would be my ultimate goal :joy:

Thanks for sharing your methods !

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… what fonts are you using? I’m loving the handwritten one on the bottom right :eyes:

ETA: that’s a really nifty card structure, and I might be stealing it for after I finish WK for practicing writing the kanji. :eyes:

Good luck in your adventures!!

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Ok, day three in this endeavor.

Because golden week I won’t be having classes next week, so more time to refine this routine.

Some comments about the routine so far.

Well, one of the main critiques you hear about RTK is related to presenting unfrequent kanji very early, since well, there’re more than a few kanji that from a writing point of view are really simple, but then just don’t get used often. So I’ve quickly come into kanji that I’m finding hard to match to a proper keyword…. I’m kinda relating to the struggle that probably the WK team had when dealing with this.

Luckily for me I don’t have to please anyone :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:, so I’ve been able to find some unusual but at least relatable vocab to match some infrequently used characters, some been proper names of characters I know and some even kinda made up words from shows (who would have guessed that 精孔 coming from Hunter x Hunter would end up been my keyword for 孔) that I’ve watched in the past and from which I’ve made Subs2SRS decks.

Now, another new addition to the routine has been something I was expecting to remedy soon, related to my vocab reviews as well.

Currently my vocab reviews look like this

The last line is for the kanji that make up the word I’m testing, and the keyword is either the one presented in WK or pretty similar comming from RTK. It’s a line that it’s available upon hovering over, so for the most part I use it when failing a card.

Thing was that I wanted to update that keyword an make it match the japanese keyword I’m using in RTK… And after searching for some time an automated way to make it happen, turns out someone already made an Anki add-on for this exactly (I guess this I why I love Anki so much. Most of the time someone had the same idea and came up already with a solution).

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/576017462

So it allows you to use the default name coming from RTK or you can set it up to look at a specific field in a deck that has both the kanji and a keyword field.

The result is looking now like this (hovering over 城 in the example).

. Actually it allows you to look up kanji in the entire sentence… which I think can be even more practical.


Anyway. The writing practice as to be expected it’s fun. But contrary to what others say… it’s taking time (as expected) as any other review (though probably because I’m practicing to match the cursive example in more than a few attemps most of the time).

@konekush
Most of the fonts I got from https://www.freejapanesefont.com , look for gyosho fonts (semicursive) or even sousho (cursive) and you’ll find similar ones.

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speaking of fonts, I recommend this WaniKani extension: Jitai (字体): The font randomizer that fits

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I’ve been meaning to go through RTK once I can manage to work it into my schedule. I’d ask you for your deck, but it sounds like you’re making it as you go? :upside_down_face:

I love the idea of using multiple keywords that’ll help reinforce certain vocab, and associate the appropriate kanji more strongly with them. I’ve also loved using Jitai (字体) here on WK, so the font variations would be excellent, too.

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There’s a typeface out there called ‘Armed Banana’ which is particularly taxing in an izakaya menu style.

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More or less doing it on the go.

I started with this deck, but sadly It only includes the most frequent 1000 kanji… so I’m adding some new cards as well (though I’m mostly just borrowing them from another complete RTK deck :smile: )

Maybe you could download a regular RTK deck and just copy the style, using your prefered fonts.
I’m finding useful to have the infrequent kanji somewhat identified beforehand, since I know that If I’m able to find good keywords for those ones, the rest will be downhill.

In the end the only real modification I’m doing is the keywords… and those I’m adding them as I go trough each chapter of the book.

@elynchbell
you’re right. I have it, but since it wasn’t gyosho or sousho like I didn’t look too closely at it. Turns out is one of the fonts that I have the most trouble at indentifying kanji, so I’ll added to the cards. Specially now that I’m working over the first chapters of the book will be great so see how those basic components get simplified later with fonts emulating handwriting style :+1:

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Well, I set up my smartphone with a JP handwriting keyboard, so that I can review KaniWani with handwritten kanji as input. This way I practice the E-J direction plus writing kanji plus recognizing kanji (even if I still have major problems with identifying cursive writing).
I also recognized, that I can remeber the kanji way better this way. I mean if you can reproduce a kanji, recognition should be almost no problem anymore.
About now I am at level 30 in KaniWani, so I should be good with the first 1000 kanji. I think for the second half I will rather take my time, because I first want to focus on reaching lvl 60 in WK.

~T :lion:

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Well, I’m not a huge fan of EN>JP, but on the other side I’m really impressed that you have managed to get to level 30… by handwriting your reviews! :fearful: … Doesn’t that take too long??

I imagine you have picked a lot of muscle memory from doing it. :muscle:

Some how picturing you doing that reminded me of a common saying in spanish:
“la letra con sangre entra” (translated loosely to something like " lessons are learned by blood") which has the meaning that lessons are learned by means of a great effort on one’s behalf.

I thought about using my phone for reviews and a deck like the one Hinekidori made for Anki, which I remember using in the past and was actually very practical because of the use of the touching screen for writing.

This time I decided on paper and both a ball point pen and a fude pen. And actually I think I’ll be practicing full words too (the example words I put in the cards at least), as writting single characters well don’t translate in knowing how to write full words vertically and keep characters properly aligned, which I’m finding out is something in which I’m very weak still :sweat_smile: .

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Well, I’d say it takes about the same time as WaniKani. For the reviews you need about 30% longer, but you have about 30% less items.
For WK you need to learn the meaning and reading of the kanji and some irregular vocab. When the items appear in KaniWani, I have them at least mastered, so I kind of know them. This way I ‘only’ add one new information.

Actually, yeah. Often I don’t really know the kanji at the first place, but just doodle something and it’s simply correct :sunglasses:

Acutally, I don’t like it that much. The stylus pen tip has to be replaced every week or two, otherwise the phone misses some parts of the strokes and than the kanji cannot be recognized. But the fact that I learn writing by SRS totally compensates it.

~T :lion:

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After I finished WK, I also thought about resetting to lv1 and restarting everything fro, the beginning while putting emphasis on writting (basically, coping examples sentences during lessons and writing down each review).

Well, I didn’t reseted but instead, I decided starting KameSame to reinforce the recall / conversational aspect. Only a matter of priority.

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I mentioned before about not been too fond of ENG>JP, and this of course is just my opinion on the matter.

I imagined it had some benefits so I gave it a try within few months into WK, but from the get go in Kaniwani those synonyms were been a drag in my reviews, besides that + WK + grammar + listening + … was feeling like just too much to handle. So I just didn’t continue with it.

After some time I started using monolingual definitions in my cards, and that specially made me frown upon ENG>JP even more. The correlation for japanese with english (and other romance language I would guess) seems to deviate from 1:1 much more than what I realized initially. Too contextual maybe … very specific words sometime whitout the broader mean of the english counterpart… who knows :man_shrugging:

I’ve started on the other hand doing shadowing for production practice. I guess I’ll could tell only after a couple of months into it what kind of benefits I’m getting from that… still it’s only been a month.

How do you deal with the context on the vocab you practice. I know WK doesn’t give too many clues about it, does Kamesame do? ご覧、見る、拝見? with which one you look? :man_shrugging:

So Kamesame gives as input the main meaning and lists all the secondary meanings as well. So you have a clue with this list.
On top, one of the main advantage of Kamesame over Kaniwani is that, in case you give the “wrong” word corresponding the given meaning (unexpected synonym, like in your example), it doesn’t mark your answer as incorrect. Instead it says something like “sorry, your word does mean XXX but we were expecting YYY. Please type this word next time.” And then the word comes back somewhen in your current review queue.
You can then follow your “likely leeches” on Kamesame main page, i.e. words not marked as wrong but where you gave an unexpected answer.

But honestly, most of the time, I differentiate those synonyms because they do not appear in the same batch of review (because not from the same level). If they do come in the same batch, then I usually rely and focus on the secondary meaning list.

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