What do you type in when you have no idea what the kanji is?

Personally, I always press “f” to pay respects.

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Great question, it is embarrassing to type something you know is wrong just because you have to type something. Although, I think it might push you harder to try to remember it.

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a or あ, since my fingers are on home-row, and if I hit something like f when it’s asking for the Japanese version, I have to add another input to make it something like ふ. Hitting A will be one input, whether it be in Japanese or English.

Though, with kanji or jukugo, I look at the radicals used, and make a best guess on a common reading for certain compounds. ^^

This is made much easier with this script to help highlight the patterns:

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Depends if it’s asking for reading or meaning.

For reading I always go with ‘hou’ seems to be right a lot of the time at my level on the ones I don’t know.

For meanings I usually mash the keyboard like: aruaglrehiv

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I always write no, or の, symbolizes my brain’s thought process :')

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I tend to just hit ‘e’ because I’m like “eh, I don’t know”

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I write de, i don’t know why

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いどけ。

Closest and easiest thing I can give to “idk”.

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I use “a” too. It’s faster that way since the vocal can work for readings and meanings.

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EDIT OOOH DURING REVIEWS I’M SUCH A DORK!!
I stare intentely at the character while rapidly going in all directions trying to either guess the meaning or to guess the mnemonic.
My original answer was a my answer for typing kanji :sweat_smile:

ORIGINAL
When I remember the kanji but not the reading (which happens to me), I usually type the stand-along reading (usually the kun’yomi) of the first character.
Press space.
Press enter.
Look at that character.
Look at my keyboard.
Look at that character again.
Feel immense shame.
Repeat until word is written.

I do the same when I haven’t typed a friend’s name for a while and I use their kanji

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I use “n” or “ん”. Picked it because if you use vowel or “no” or whatever, you can still get kanji marked as correct (if you get very ‘un’-lucky) and mess up your SRS level for this item.

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I type either “e” or “saaa” :wink:

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か probably a holdover from early lessons when that seemed to be every kanji I couldn’t get right.

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Exactly. Also n = null.

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this brings up a funny story, actually. coarse language ahead, but –

– one time i didn’t know the answer so i typed in “fuck.” the kanji was 運. the correct answer was “luck.” wanikani marked me correct, with a typo.

might be the funniest thing to ever happen to me on wanikani. also, the luckiest.

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and just for “pics or it didn’t happen” cred, i remembered i have a screenshot:

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I always type い, for no interesting reason at all :frowning_face:

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I usually just hit a random letter

I usually type え or あ, but with え I’m usually just thinking 「ええっと…」

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I do this, too, for the same reason.

But when 阿 came up for review and I couldn’t remember the reading:

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