Kanji Learning Enhancements

[mossy sparrow]

I have a couple ideas for improving Kanji learning.

First, for Kanji review cards, it would be great to have an option you could toggle to first hide the background image behind the Kanji - then click to show.

When first learning Kanji, the background is super helpful. But at some point, it becomes necessary to not rely on the background. This could help with that.

Second, when reviewing sentences where Kanji appear (and are reviewed in the answer) it would be great to be able to hover over them and see the background image they are associated with. Just to make that connection in the brain - many times I do very well with the Kanji review (with pictures) and then completely blank when seeing them without the pictures.

Those are just a couple ideas to improve learning Kanji.

Thank you for considering!

[sonic charm]

I had the same thought regarding the picture possibly "giving it away" but my brain doesn't focus on that so much. Would be nice to have that option, but it also sounds like a pain to program

[steep cedar]

I pretty much ignore the background because the mnemonics for me are far more reliable

[round thicket]

For the first point, the kanji is written beneath the picture I guess as a backup, so if you turned images off (which I've seen as an option I'm pretty sure) you could use the written one. Doesn't help for new kanji where you want it though

[tranquil kiln]

@mossy sparrow I legitimately had this thought yesterday as I was studying, since I was getting tired of the back and forth toggle on the picture option. What I'm doing for the time being is a little convoluted but you may find it helpful. What I'm doing is putting on a random video from Ramabalac (which tend to be the least distracting ) and putting the video in picture-in-picture mode (depends what browser you use) and putting it over the top of the card what the picture resides and leaving the plain character exposed. This works for me because I have audio on the from of my cards as well so I'm trying to practice my hearing as well. If I get stuck then I just move the window and see the picture and it jogs my memory to which it applies to and press on the reaction that suits me best. Thought to pitch it out there but you might find something more useful

[warm crow]

adding a toggle on the card to show/hide the background image that also follows your default setting is actually a idea.

second idea is also something to consider!

[warm crow]

you are able to disable them entirely if you'd like to, if you're finding the provide no value to you.

the images are certainly helpful for some, but not at all for others.

[warm crow]

solid work around hahah. love it

[warm crow]

In addition I think custom mnemonics might be useful so one can write their own should they want to^^

[calm torrent]

I would love to see the picture of the kanji in a native setting . Although I know that'd probably add a lot more work. Just wishful thinking 🙂

[sonic charm]

I would love that! Some of the NS mnemonics don't work for me, so I'd like to update to use my own (or use a couple Heisig mnemonics, even though it hurts to admit that...)

[warm crow]

unsure what you mean here? could you elaborate / give an example?

[warm crow]

yeah! i think if you're using mnemonics at all, custom mnemonics are almost always better / better when you find a pre-built that doesn't work for you.

[calm torrent]

Something like this. Just some real world example or it being used in manga/anime. It feels easier to grasp the kanji this way

[warm crow]

ah, i see. hmm, that sort of scenario is only true for a certain subset of kanji. most the context would just be like, a book. haha. or a sign in the wild.

but! a way to do this would be to add a custom image upload option to your kanji card, and then to allow them to be shared to the community so others could browse as well (there's risks involved here so we couldn't do that until there's also some amount of moderation). but basically when you find a kanji in the wild, you could upload a picture of it^^

[calm torrent]

yeah that's true but if we could expand it to vocab too that'd be great (like お手洗い for example). Yes! That I think would help a lot if we could upload and share and maybe have an option to auto use most highly rated picture and you could set the picture just change the ones you'd rather have a different picture for. Your idea would be way less taxing for staff and the sharing aspect is especially great for those of us who would love it but too lazy to find our own pictures hahaha

[warm crow]

Collecting kanji enchantment related discussion here in this thread so we can refer to it in a condensed fashion as it’s a large discussion for sure.

Linking some good discussion from the platform talk channel—

#💬︱platform-talk message

#💬︱platform-talk message

Feel free to report here as well.

[elder ruin]

I wonder if it would make sense to show the kanji AFTER the vocab in lessons? It might go along more with the "don't worry you'll get it eventually" thought process? It might function in my brain a little more like a kanji breakdown does. Like "I just saw this new word in a sentence with new kanji," and THEN "here's what those kanji meant/how they go together." Might give us more of a subconscious "here's what you're memorizing this meaning for" or the process of "how does that work? Oh, that's how it works."

It's also like how we see station names, people's names, places without knowing the kanji and start being able to say them based on remembering the sentence context. I would LOVE to be able to see kanji breakdowns for those too, not necessarily to memorize it that way, but just to be recognizing kanji in lots of different scenarios. After all, I can't predict which way will make it stick the most!

Also +1 to custom mnemonics 😂😂 I think there's a long mnemonic for 売 and I'm like "That looks like a salesman."

[verbal isle]

I think I probably could work with the kanji after the vocab

[devout coral]

Yeah, if you're not just going to do the whole ~2,200 Kanji -> English keyword(s) in 3 months to get some familiarity with a bunch of Kanji. That feels like it could be a better way to do it. Oh that word you learnt here's the Kanji that were used to present it, and here's some info about it. Maybe a list of other words that it will show up in later lessons/cards (which I guess might be possible when the dictionary is done).

I guess then the question is, is that just a one-time thing? Or do you show the Kanji info each time you introduce new vocab? Just the first time you encounter it? Do you keep them as SRS?

I feel like I'd rather just it be introduced once, but you have the option to look at the Kanji page/card from a link on lesson/vocab cards, and maybe there just a page with all the Kanji if you wanted to have a look around. Rather than keeping them as SRS cards.

[crude marsh]

I never press the sad face on kanji cards, but I am able to recall their meaning most of the time. Or rather, I remember something like „ah, that‘s the kanji from that one word“ which is more than good enough for me.
Seeing them alone gives me a second point of entry for remembering the vocab word, since a vocab word that containts a kanji I haven‘t seen before is always way harder to me
I hope once the content system upgrade is in place, the „vocab that uses this kanji“ portion of the flashcard will be more consistent and make them more useful

I do like the suggestion of putting kanji cards behind vocab cards chronologically. So first you learn a word that uses the kanji, then the kanji gets properly introduced. I usually always skip the first few reviews of a kanji until I have vocab to glue it to anyways