First of all, this discussion is only for people who do use Ignore Answer plugins, if you don’t use it, please don’t start a debate here about the usage.
I’m interested in how people use the plugin.
Correcting typos. Seems like a no brainer. you knew the answer.
Gave reading on a meaning prompt. Also a no brainer to me, the site even stops you from doing the reverse type of error are easy ones for me, I always correct if I can.
Gave wrong answer because you’re on autopilot and visually mapped the word to a very similar word. A bit controversial. On one hand, I can see accepting the punishment as a way to teach you to pay attention. On the other hand, teaching you to pay attention isn’t the purpose of the site and you knew the correct answer. I usually correct those too.
Give wrong answer XXXXX but immediately go “Ah no, the right one is YYYY (which is correct)”. This one is weird. I don’t actually know why it happens. I autopilot into XXXX but then literally nanoseconds after seeign the red color i know the right answer. It’s not a case of mistaking the kanji either I think And it’s not like i was torn between XXXX and YYY, not even sure how XXXX was in my mind. These I go half and half. These I usually accept as errors, but sometimes it’s so weird to me when it happens on kanji/words I absolutely know and don’t even know where XXX came from.
One reason I did not see in your list are the obvious synonyms to words. Sometimes I know a word from anki or from general Japanese learning outside of Wanikani, and I map a certain word (correctly) to an English word not on WaniKani’s list. I know you can add synonyms in Wanikani, but this is for the first time I get it wrong because I forgot to add it kind of thing.
Another way I use ignore is whenever the word has a different meaning not yet added in Wanikani’s database for that word.
I mean Wanikani is not perfect nor do I expect it to be. The ignore button has been in blessing for these reasons. I obviously do not use it if I clearly do not know the word. The whole point is to be learning. Having to learn a word I know because of stupid mistakes is dumb. I will have the rest of my life to learn those words better in order not to make those trivial mistakes. I want to focus on the words I clearly do not know.
Just my 2 cents.
(Bonus Reason) Sometimes I forget the English word for the Japanese word and use a Spanish (My native language) word instead. I know it is gonna be wrong. I do this to check what the English word really was, and if it is the same as my Spanish word I click ignore and use the English word the next time around.
I use Double Check instead of Ignore Answer, but the result is the same: having to self police on wrong answers.
1+2 obviously do that,
3 I go back and forth on that. It usually happens when I’m distracted or tired or otherwise impaired, so I tend to be lenient on those.
4 This one I’m ambivalent about. My thought is this: you only knew the right answer because the site already told you you were wrong, but there will be no such hints in the real world. Of course, there usually there will be context to automatically proclude the wrong answer, unlesd you are already misunderstanding the context, or the wrong answer leads you further away from the correct answer. So yeah, I usually correct these, I guess?
5+6 Same page.
I think I have kind of a quantity over quality mindset at times, so I figure, learning more words imperfectly is better than learning less words perfectly. The real world (and Japanese teacher) will correct me if I make bad mistakes.
I have been thinking of asking rfindley if it would be possible to implement an extra summary panel where you can see the words you double checked on (and maybe even still demote them, since I often backspace on autopilot).
Yeah I agree on the quantity over quality too. For example I start reviews after a tiring day of work and mess up 3-4 times right at the start. I know this is me being tired and usually my error rate goes way down after I get into the groove, so I’m more forgiving on the soft errors (not 5-6 ) than later on in the review chain or in weekends.
I have a script that prioritizes overdue items, so sometimes for the first review I’ll see one thing and by the time I’ve finished typing that in another thing has loaded up. I’ll ignore those wrong answers otherwise I basically do the same as you.
I always say what I mean to type out loud (if quietly) before typing. Prevents a lot of dishonest “well that’s what I meant, of course” corrections.
So:
Simple typos (fat finger etc): correct.
Japanese typos (e.g. se instead of sa): correct. Again, I say them first, so I know if I got it right or not even if I screw up the entry. I’m doing this to learn kanji, not typing or even hiragana.
Enter meaning for reading or vice-versa: correct.
Said it wrong first: no correction. If I said it wrong, it is wrong. Same goes for rendaku, long vowels, etc.
Unlisted synonym: correct, and add it to the synonym list.
Close-but-no-cigar meaning: these are really the tricky ones, but I think I have a pretty good feel for when the meaning I thought about is close enough to the meaning provided by WK, vs. when my choice conveys a different concept or different part of speech. But I’ve been getting a little more lenient with these, because the point is to be able to understand and pronounce words on sight, and if I’ve got the jist of it when reading, that’s the most important part.
Radical burn reviews: always correct. By the time I get a radical to Burn level, I don’t ever want to see it come back. I couldn’t care less whether I remember the made-up name for it or not.
If I don’t remember the meaning of a word in english but I do remember it in italian then I just write some gibberish to see what the answer is in english and then just ignore the mistake.
I do not consider it a mistake if I momentarily forgot how to say something in english.
I have been in script abuse jail for it XD
Even reset cause my real retention was too low.
But I still use the script and absolutely need it.
I have dyslexia so will always say it (either voice it internally or actually say it out loud) and if what I intended is not what came out I will hit the ignore without even looking and try type it again.
English is not my primary language, so sometimes, for the life of me, I can’t think of the word they use.
I sometimes go “Of it is that word on C with sort of meaning of this”, checks, it is that word on C and has the meaning I thought of, no brainer, hit ignore and retype it.
Sometimes I just put the Norwegian word
I do prefer the ignore script and having to manually type it again though, hoping that will enforce it more than “mark as right” would.
Other than that I do more or less same as OP list =)
I’ve learned to get better at accepting the hit
“I was close, but guess I could benefit from reinforcing it”
Overall, my rules are pretty similar to yours I’d say. I’ll add that if I get a radical of the current level wrong on apprentice, I’ll usually ignore it, as I’ll learn it sooner or later anyway and it’s not worth being slowed down by misremembering a radical.
There’s also some words, like all the baseball vocabulary, that I’ll ignore when I get them wrong because they’re really irrelevant to me. Don’t know wtf an “umpire” or a “double play” is and I really don’t care either.
@ajdgaoigjaoirgjo
I think your method is the best way to use it.
I’ve been doing something similar for the past few levels and it hasn’t affected my reading comprehension of new items in any noticeable way. Context is more forgiving than the ignore script as long as you don’t mark something correct that you have absolutely no idea what the right answer is.
tl/dr
As long as you’re immersing(reading in particular) and you are remembering the majority of the kanji and vocabulary you learnt on Wanikani while reading then you’re fine.
I’m very strict and only use it if my fingers slipped and I typed something different than intended, if I started typing kani for the english section (and vice versa) or if I use an appropriate synonym that WK didn’t have. Anything else and I take the hit even if it really sucks.
Correcting typos. Seems like a no brainer. you knew the answer.
Yup. I use my phone and typos are inevitable.
Gave reading on a meaning prompt. Also a no brainer to me, the site even stops you from doing the reverse type of error are easy ones for me, I always correct if I can.
I’ve never had an issue with this. I think I’ve only ever had to do this once in almost 2 years.
Gave wrong answer because you’re on autopilot and visually mapped the word to a very similar word.
Personally, I allow these to be marked wrong. If the answer was “participation” and I entered “participant”, I take the hit. I want to be able to distinguish the two.
Give wrong answer XXXXX but immediately go “Ah no, the right one is YYYY (which is correct)”.
Like others have said, I will say out loud (or in my head) both the meaning and reading for every item. I have the full information set to popup, so if I get either of them wrong, it’s marked wrong.
Plus, this is the part where I think the slippery slope of abuse starts so I’m extremely careful with this.
Give wrong answer but close. I accept the hit
This is pretty much the same as #3 for me.
Plain wrong answer. I accept the hit.
Agreed.
Edit: One thing I forgot to mention is that I always let radicals slide. As I’ve gotten to higher levels, they WK ones have become much less useful, especially as the majority are now just reused kanji.
One not on your list is, and it is rare: if the kanji evokes an understanding of a concept that I cannot quite put into any English word or phrase (even though WaniKani does), I’ll approximate it with some guess, and if I’m close enough, I’ll undo the wrong answer.
For example, the word might be a verb related to ‘closing in’ or ‘drawing near’ and the kanji I see elicits some kind of idea of the action of something getting closer to another thing. If I can’t remember exactly how WaniKani chose to label the concept, I’ll evaluate whether I was actually right by checking the answer when I’m wrong. You often have to use Japanese dictionaries to confirm you’re right, though.
Relatedly, sometimes you’ll find that you are more correct than WaniKani. For example, I recently learned the word ‘foundation’ 礎, which has a ‘stone’ radical in it, and thus my mnemonic revolved around it being a ‘cornerstone’. Turns out: that’s exactly what that word means, with the pronunciation in Japanese being "ishizue’ which is a combination of ‘stone’ [石 ‘ishi’] and ‘end’ (末 ‘sue’). If I feel aggrieved by WaniKani telling me my answer is wrong, I appeal to the court of Jisho.
This may work more for those who think in similar ways. Some kanji to me are directly translatable into concepts I have coded as words, whereas others are feelings or conceptual pictures that English words cannot pin down exactly.
Be honest with yourself though.
P.S. Agreed. Radical names are mostly pointless and you should not let them hold you back on learning new kanji or burning them from your queue.
I don’t think I was able to get to this point until about a year and a half of WK, so this may not work for newer users. At this point, I’ve gotten much better at grasping the abstract meaning of an item that isn’t quite captured with a single english word or phrase.
Aye. This is another thing that I’ve only realized after quite some time on WK, so it’s also one that I would recommend that newer users take with a grain of salt.
i have the same opinion about the no-brainer ones.
on top of that, i plan to:
correct all anwers for Radicals. They are just there to learn Kanji. I have no problem giving them a pass, to get them out of the way.
correct answers for Radicals and Kanji that are on apprentice level and i haven’t guru-ed yet. Basically items i need to get right, to unlock new items.
I mostly follow the same guidelines as you except for point four. Unless it’s a complete brain-fart of an answer I take the hit when I actually type in a whole wrong answer.
I am a bit lenient on obvious synonyms though.
The situation where I am torn, is when I think of the right answer, then correct myself and enter the wrong answer. Generally I let those go as ‘wrong’ but my gut says “I was right the first time!”
投手 is not particularly rare. It’s often appended to pitchers’ names like 先生 is.
The kanji baseball words are more typically used in places where space is limited, like in charts or newspaper articles. But even so, I see 投手 even when space isn’t limited.
