Well, not all words in existence just the ones here on WK. If you go to the kanji page and scroll to the bottom, you can see all vocabulary that uses it.
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WK seems to have fully embraced the philosophy that missing an SRS review isnāt really a bad thing - it just means you have a couple more chances to reinforce the word before it disappears forever into the burn pile. This whole experience is much less frustrating if you can drink that kool-aid.
@rayden96, Iām at about the same point as you (7.5 months in, level 18), and I can imagine how frustrating it is to have too many misses pile up until all your WK time is consumed with reviews. Here are a couple of thoughts that have helped me avoid that.
First, as has been said ad nauseam, Tsurukame/FlamingDurtles are great, and there are user scripts that can provide similar features directly on WK. I try to use the undo function only if I truly know in my heart that what Iād meant to type was correct, and I just mistyped (or on the rare occasion that thereās a word I really do not care about learning). But the really handy feature is reordering by SRS level. I try to zero my reviews every day, but sometimes life just gets busy, and itās bed time, and I know Iām so tired that if I try to push through 100+ reviews before going to sleep, Iāll miss them all. At those times, I set the review order to ascending SRS level and do the first 20-30, then leave the rest for tomorrow morning. The nature of SRS is such that doing the first few reviews on time is really important, but doing a 4-month review a day or two late wonāt make much difference. So, I religiously clear my Apprentice-Guru reviews every day, and then catch up on the others when I have time. This lets me keep making progress on new lessons, and keep my review queue down, even if I canāt clear all my reviews every day.
Second, work the mnemonics. In Remembering the Kanji (RTK), Heisig lays out a masterful method to learn the meanings and writings of over 2000 kanji, using radicals and mnemonics. WK tries to do something similar for reading, but doesnāt pull it off nearly as well. (Unfortunately, RTK doesnāt touch on readings or vocab at all, which is why Iām here.) The great advice Heisig repeatedly drills is: āIf a kanji causes you trouble, spend time clarifying the imagery of its story,ā instead of wasting time drilling repetitions. Use the constituent radicals to create an image/story in your mind that will cary you to the definition. āThe aim is to shock the mindās eye, to disgust it, to enchant it, to tease it, or to entertain it in any way possible so as to brand it with an image intimately associated with the key word [i.e., the definition].ā This same process can work for anchoring the reading of a vocab word.
WK tries to present such mnemonic stories, but those are often pretty pathetic, in my opinion. Those are just suggestions. If WKās mnemonic doesnāt get the job done for you, come up with your own to anchor a reading to an image/story/memory in your own life, so it sticks for you. Spend a few minutes building a personal mnemonic that will pop into your mind whenever you see a given vocab word, and which will clearly remind you of the reading (or a troublesome aspect of the reading, such as whether to apply rendaku), and you will have ensured youāll never again forget that wordās reading. At any point, if you find youāre repeatedly struggling to remember a definition or reading, donāt just keep fruitlessly drilling repetitions. This means your mnemonic isnāt doing its job, so stop and fix/reinforce/exaggerate your mnemonic until the image pops into your head effortlessly when you see the word, even four months later.
This is easier said than done, but focusing on this approach really does make a difference.
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I just skimmed through most of the other comments, so Iām not sure if something like this was already said, but Iād personally really like to be able to review by level or by a few selected terms even after youāve completed it. I havenāt gotten any burned terms yet, but Iāve dreading it for a few of the reasons you pointed out. At least for me, I think a review function like that would really put me at ease. On the other hand, I can also vouch for Tsurukami like others have suggested.
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The Reorder Omega userscript allows you to perform self-study reviews, which you can filter by WK level or by SRS level, among other things.
You can also similarly filter your actual reviews, though I wouldnāt recommend that, as it could undermine the benefits of SRS.
Another option for level-specific review is utilizing the context sentences. Their original intent seems to be to allow you to see how a vocab word is used in context, but theyāre also super useful for vocab practice if you can arrange to have them randomly served up to you. Iād love to see a user script for this.
My solution has been to copy and paste them all into a Google Sheet workbook (with a separate sheet for each level), with the English translations invisible (white text on white background) until I click on them. That way I can randomize the order of all the sentences from a given level, and practice that levelās vocab by reading the words in context, as has been so heavily promoted in this thread. Alternatively, itās not hard to write a script to pull a random sentence from a random sheet (i.e., a random level), for more comprehensive review.
For levels 1-30, most vocab words come with about 3 context sentences each. Level 9, for example, has 453 context sentences. Thatās a bunch of reading practice per level, while also letting you specifically focus on level 9 vocab, and also incorporating random occurrence of words from prior levels as they are used in a given sentence. Plus, those sentences are all customized to include only (mostly) kanji youāve learned, which makes them arguably the most personally customized kanji reading practice youāll find anywhere.
I try to stick to a WK pace of 2 levels per month, which means Iād need to read 20-30 sentences every day to get through them all. Iām currently reading through the sentences about 8-10 levels (4-5 months) behind my current level, to refresh those words that might be starting to fade from memory, and at this point, I donāt feel much need to look for extra reading practice or extra vocab review.
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