Would using flash cards in-between reviews be detrimental?

WaniKani
#1

Hello everyone,

I’m having a bit of difficulty with vocabulary in particular, and was wondering if making my own flash cards for my “Critical Condition Items” would go against SRS and/or be detrimental to my learning.

I understand the point of SRS - I just seem to have difficulty on the first couple of Apprentice steps for some vocab. (Once I get a review right 2-3 times I tend to be goo from then on out.)

I made some flash cards with the vocab that gives me trouble, but I’m not sure if using them defeats the purpose of WaniKani.

Any other tips or suggestions would be appreciated.

ありがとうございます！ :wave:

2 Likes
#2

SRS intervals can’t be perfectly matched for everyone. ^^ I feel like an extra review or two in the early stages doesn’t have to be detrimental, and if you feel like that’s what you need, then that’s what you need. I know I do much better with BunPro if I quiz myself a few hours after I learn new items (still a few hours away from their first review).

I would mostly advise that you don’t self-study items very close to their review point. And I personally never really reviewed words in later SRS stages, because at that point I really wanted to know if I could retain them over longer periods. I wanted items like that to get demoted if I couldn’t get them from Master to Enlightened, for example.

WK expects you to start reading as early as possible, so you’ll be encountering words outside of the SRS all the time anyway. If you ever feel like a word is shaky, you can enter a wrong answer and demote it yourself.

I would do that with some WK vocab. I’d encounter it while reading and had to look it up. When it came up for a Burn review a week later, I knew it hadn’t cemented to my liking, so I failed it on purpose.

8 Likes
#3

You might be interested in this script if you use a personal computer for WK. It has built in leech review functionality so you can save time and resources making your own flashcards!

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#4

Reading practice is better for me, Even advertisement emails or short random texts.

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#5

I like to do a self study quiz when there are some fuckers, that just won’t go even over Apprentice 1 or 2.

I think the rote memorization in early stages can help.

場所 is a nice example I had recently.

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#6

Fair enough…I suppose getting so many vocabulary questions wrong may have demotivated me a bit so I wanted to find other ways to improve. (…and things haven’t even gotten difficult yet :cold_sweat: :cold_sweat: :cold_sweat:)

It’s the exceptions that get me, in the end. Then, I’ll try to think proactively for other questions being exceptions, and then they aren’t. :frowning_face:

I appreciate everyone’s advice, in any case. がんばります！

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#7

What do you mean by this?

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#8

If you’re doing a review and fail the items, so they stay in the first Apprentice stage, they will reappear 4 hours later.

I like to quiz them separately earlier than that and feel they tend to stay for good then.

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#9

To add to this. Someone else (I don’t remember who) mentioned that if they review them immediately after the first lesson (after the quiz) they stick better.

I find that helps too.

Another thing that helps me is writing down my leeches (ones I’m struggling with) by hand.

3 Likes
#10

Yeah, this is sort of what I was dong - writing down the kanji vocab/meanings I always seemed to get wrong. I guess I’ll wait and see if it helps at all!

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#11

Just make sure you aren’t reviewing them too close to their view time.

You might want to search the forum for the ultimate timeline too. That will show you exactly what’s coming up and when.

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#12

I appreciate this and this whole thread as I had the same question.

At the moment I am relatively low in the levels and so I find myself once a day just glancing over my critical items to refresh the mnemonics in my head to try and boost memory. After the critical items are gone i’m trying to just stick to the reviews. This is working for me at the moment with an average 90% accuracy but I am aware that as the levels and workload ramp up I might start using other methods.

For me I estimated about level 9-10 to start using my Genki 1 book that i’ve had for the past 3 years and never used. This off the recommendation from the Tofugu guide that I decided to follow which brought me here.

But what is resonating the most with me is that everyone is indivdual with their learning styles. The SRS system with no extra work is working for me so far but yeah.

3 Likes
#13

Phew, it’s like looking into a mirror! I’m on the same path - but I stopped a few chapters into Genki I to get to 10 on WK. I’ve got 5-6 different leeches all at about 50%… :sweat:

It’s definitely frustrating. I’m going to be trying out BISHBASHBOSH as I’ve heard good things for helping with this issue.

1 Like
#14

Just looked into BISHBASHBOSH it seems pretty good. Sometimes I do WK while i’m in work so can’t the extra API mods that do the same thing so thanks for that!

Those leeches will go soon just maybe make your own mnemonic?

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#15

Me too! I may or may not be right now… :mask:

I’ll try it when I get home, for sure. For now I think I’ll try to immediately write down any kanji/vocab I get wrong.

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#16

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