At the urging of a friend I trust I decided to try WK to supplement my kanji learning. I’m currently trying to get a jump on kanji ahead of next term, when we officially start learning it as part of the language course I’m taking. I’ve been using the app Kanji! (Which is decent, but could be improved…at least it teaches stroke order), along with the Kanji I’m getting from MNN, putting them all in Anki for review. My friend said WK helped her properly remember and read kanji, so I figured I’d give it a shot.
I’ve found it incredibly frustrating so far. Let’s start with 力. I learned this as ちから (just one reading, I k ow, but still). WK refuses to accept ちから, and demands りき. WTF? It is so hard trying to remember different decontextualised readings BY APP, and feels so pointless.
Why penalise someone for being right? I don’t understand. (And that’s before we even address the eye-rollingly bad unseriousness of WK….the ‘radicals’ “gun” and “leaf” strike me as needlessly confusing and profoundly “un-Japanese”)
Does this get any better? Should I just drop it?
9 comments
Download flaming durtles. It’s a 3rd party app that allows you to do wanikani reviews, but importantly you can set up an undo button.
I felt the same as you but about silly typos when typing too fast. It’s annoying having a review marked wrong when you know the answer.
If you actually looked at the screen you’re on you would see it says VOCABULARY READING or KANJI READING, it’s not asking for the reading you learned in the vocab word, it’s asking for the onyomi reading of the kanji. It doesn’t even mark chikara as a wrong reading it just tells you it’s not the one it’s looking for, so why are you so mad about it when it’s not even penalizing you?
In my experience with Wanikani it says which reading it is trying to get you to recreate at this point. They have different background colors and it explicitely says what it is looking for. For the purpose of learning kanji it is trying to get you to understand and apply the difference between Kun and On readings which is an important distinction to make. The ちから and りき readings of 力 are extremely different in how and when they are used.
For the radicals, why do you want them to be Japanese-esque? The only thing that they need to be for this is to be memorable and “gun” and “leaf” create two very distinct connections while being viable abstractions of the symbols. Iirc you can set up synonyms as well if you have a better idea for them.
Download tsurukame. It’s exactly why I stopped wanikani before — one accidental mistake and you’re set back another week basically.
I don’t think you should feel like you need to use WaniKani just because everyone else is.
I personally prefer Kanji Garden for my learning style, I find it does a good job of adjusting the pace at which it introduces new kanji into the mix which is great because I already knew a lot of kanji before starting to use it.
Whereas WaniKani felt torturous, trying to teach me it’s mnemonics when I already had my own.
Kanji Garden does this a bit with radicals as well, but it just shows them to you once before it introduces Kanji using those radicals and then you never see that radical on it’s own again, it doesn’t show up in your reviews or anything and I am all for it.
That and I like that Kanji Garden is multiple choice be default, it doesn’t cement the kanji in your mind as well as typing in the answers does, but personally I just want to slowly get accustomed to kanji when I’m studying, and then cement my knowledge through developing familiarity while reading.
Granted like WaniKani it is expensive for what it is, not sure I’d recommend it unless you have some disposable income you don’t mind parting ways with.
I truly do not understand this complaint. WaniKani makes a point to teach the different readings separately and learning the different readings is one of the major parts of learning Kanji.
On top of that if you input a right answer with the wrong reading in WaniKani it does not even say it is wrong. A note pops up that says that it is looking for a different reading and to try again which is basically the most forgiving way to handle that problem.
If this post boils down to “I don’t want to learn multiple readings” than Kanji is going to be really tough for you.
I get WK may not be for everyone but OP is hating on it for the wrong reasons. Considering 力 appears in level 1 it sounds like OP has used the app for a couple of days and is jumping to (wrong) conclusions. OP needs to understand what kanji are (including on’yomi vs kun’yomi) before rushing to judgment about WK. Any kanji app that doesn’t teach the readings りょくand りき for 力 is basically useless.
As someone who is level 60 I can tell you that you will look back on this and laugh. As others have said, 力(ちから) is a vocab word. But what will you do when you get to a word like 馬力? The reading is ばりき and the meaning is horsepower. When 力 is combined with another kanji, the reading is usually りき or りょく.
Keep going, and supplement with other resources that are FUN for you! WK was a big part of my Japanese getting to the level it is now, but it’s just one piece.
I know a lot of people stand by wanikani but personally I think it’s better to just learn kanji through vocab