I only have 70% accuracy for my vocab readings. Should i be worried , and if so has anyone got any tips to get better at it, or is it just a case of keeping going? Feeling a bit disheartened since i see many on here with 95%+ and now at decision point about whether to subscribe to reach level 4 or not. I love WaniKani and probably will subscribe regardless, but didn’t know if i should be doing something different to improve my accuracy… the biggest thing i’m struggling with is knowing which reading to apply to which vocab at any one time. Also get confused between the radical and the identical item as kanji.
Looks like i have 41 leeches already and i’ve only just started
70% is definitely something to be concerned about. That probably stems partly from getting only 77% with the kanji readings since they are so related. Best recommendation I have is to spend more time during lessons and try to use the mnemonics more.
But why would that be something to be worried about? I mean… getting stuff wrong is only another chance to cement it in your brain. I am at 76% and it may take a bit longer but it doesn’t have to be something to hold you back. I usually get the reading wrong 1 or 2 times before it clicked in my brain.
It’s a concern from a workload perspective. The more you get wrong the more reviews you have. It will continue to compound over time until it potentially becomes overbearing.
This will get better with exposure to more vocab; you’ll start to get a knack for patterns which tell you whether to use on’yomi or kun’yomi. I was definitely still memorizing the vocab readings on a case-by-case basis at level 3 (and also waited an extra week to crush leeches before subscribing) so it’s not something to be ashamed of and definitely not directly comparable to higher-level members’ accuracies.
Basically, verbs (non-する) with okurigana will always use kunyomi readings, as will い-adjectives and various nouns/na-adjectives. Kanji compounds with 2+ kanji (including する verbs) will usually use on’yomi, and 1-kanji words will usually use kun’yomi. These last two have exceptions you’ll still have to memorize case-by-case (by relying on mnemonics) but it’s better than a blank slate for every word.
Also on levels 1-3 there are the つ-counters and 日-counters which have exceptional (kunyomi) readings you just have to slog through. Those drop off after a few levels.
Yes, if you get it right the next time. If you keep getting the same item wrong, something needs to be done.
I would advise OP @anon78952551 to spend more time on the lessons. Before going to the lesson quiz, make sure that you’re able to recognize both the meaning and the reading of all items you just learned. There are several different ways to fix this problem, but I believe this one to be the easiest to apply and with significant results.
As far as the percentage goes, I wouldn’t be too worried and just let the SRS do its thing.
As for increasing your accuracy, I found that at least for myself, actually writing the kanji and Vocab helps a lot. I made an excel sheet and basically made a reverse form of Wanikani. I see the English translation and i write it down on a notebook and manage a separated SRS ranking for it.
Another plus for using that excel file, is that I was able to order all the vocab from A to Z. That way it groups all the similar ones together and their English translations. Seeing all the words like that instead of one word at a time really made a difference for me.
As @seanblue said, is something to be concerned when you have tons of lessons and reviews, since we’re at low levels, we can probably handle it. But when you get to higher levels, if you continue with this accuracy, the workload will overwhelm you to a point where you have so many reviews because you got the readings wrong so many times, you could even quit WaniKani, and that’s something unwanted.
You should try to read and understand the mnemonic, and create a bond between the kanji and its meaning
I get really irritated at myself when I fall below 90%. Which is why I go as slow as I need to keep it above that. Quality over quantity (and speed, which becomes an illusion if you keep failing, since that will make it take even longer). I also space my lessons out with one or two hour breaks so I don’t overwhelm myself trying to learn all of them at once, and spend more time on each individual lesson (I don’t understand how some do every lesson as soon as they unlock, wow). But I understand if you don’t have that much time to spare.
The intuition of knowing which reading to apply will come with time, I’m getting there and at lvl 6. You just have to stick with it, but it sounds like you like wanikani, so that doesn’t seem to be a problem.
I’d say if you have that many leeches you should slow down with lessons and focus on getting rid of those before you continue, lest they come back and bite you later. This applies any time it happens in the future as well. And spend more time on lessons so leeches don’t happen at all, like the ones before me have said. (Leeches are still gonna happen, but hey there’s hopefully gonna be less of them.)
I like to pre-study. I do new lesson quizzes in the morning around 7am and in the evening around 5pm. Right after I complete a quiz, I’ll do a quick study of the new lesson items which I’ll be quizzed on 10 or 14 hours later. I’ll do my own mini-SRS, which is to say, I’ll look over the items with the readings and meanings hidden and quiz myself mentally. The first few intervals are pretty short (1 minute, 10 minutes, etc), but you’d be surprised how quickly you can forget (at least I am quick to forget). And kanji is much harder for me than the radicals/vocabulary. But it works quite well. I have many hours to study before actually taking a quiz, and by the time I do, there is a pretty good chance I’ll remember the items. I still get stuff wrong, of course, but my accuracy has been pretty good so far.
The only thing to be aware of is that sometimes the new lesson items can change over the course of a day as you do your reviews. So I actually do my 7am and 5pm reviews after I take my quizzes, which is probably backwards from what people typically do.
Lots of good advices have been given so far.
I just want to add that if you are a complete beginner (or near beginner), it’s perfectly normal to have low scores. I’m guessing that most people at 95%+ (if not all) have had exposure to the language before.
… and that’s also where you will improve. It’s really hard to try to figure things out in a void.
I would recommend to look at full sentences in Japanese, with furigana/vocab reading, for instance from a text book.
Slow down on WK if you have to, there’s no point steaming ahead if you won’t remember the material anyway.
Exactly what Nath said, and working with WK program takes some time to get used to, like knowing which response is being asked for, for example. After a time, I think you’ll develop sense for WK and Japanese. One day you may log in for a lesson and be able to read the vocab before reaching the “reading” tab.
It’s important to make a distinction between the percentage on the stats site and the percentage of items that are considered correct for the SRS. The stats site includes all answers to reviews (the aggregate of the % that shows up while doing reviews in the top right corner). Let’s say you review two kanji. The first kanji you get the meaning and reading correct right away (2/2). For the second kanji, you get the meaning correct right away, but you get the reading wrong once and then get it right (2/3). The stats site would say your percentage is 80% (4/5). But you actually got 50% (1/2) of the items to go up in the SRS.
To give a real example, I just finished a review session of 55 items. Within the review session, my final score was 95%, which is roughly what my overall average is on the stats site. However, according to the summary page, I got 89% correct, which is all the SRS cares about (I would guess this is slightly above my average). My point is, the actual percentage of items that move up in the SRS is always less than the percentage that is shown during a review session and on the stats site. So if someone is getting 70% on the stats site, they are doing worse in the SRS itself, which is a concern.
Sorry for the long-winded post… it got a bit away from me.
P.S. @anon78952551, please don’t be discouraged by this. You are taking the first important step by asking for advice and I hope you take this opportunity to modify your approach to WaniKani (and perhaps studying in general) so that you can learn more effectively.
P.P.S I second @konekush’s suggestion to use the Keisei Semantic-Phonetic Composition script. It will help you learn on’yomi kanji readings by recognizing patterns and this will help you learn the vocab better as well.
My problem seems to be when I see words or kanji that I haven’t seen in a long time, I often have no clue what they are. I guess I have to question the SRS concept, since people don’t remember or forget at the same rate. Older people (like me) forget more quickly perhaps. I don’t know how to combat this except by constantly reviewing the material offline. At level 6, it might be doable, but not at higher levels.
I wouldn’t worry one bit. If it takes you multiple times to get something right, so be it. The aim is to learn, not to learn overnight. All that this means is that it’ll take you a little longer to finish the course. The only things you should be concerned about are leeches.
Find them, kill them, profit.
Kaniwani is your friend, best friend, あなたの親友。it helps with cementing things in your brain so much and doesn’t interfere with WK’s SRS as, obviously, they are two different sites.
I honestly regret not just doing both at the same time.
