I’ve not seen much jp language discussion going on in the discord unfortunately, so I’d love to get the ball rolling on it here if possible :3 just set the tone for bringing up stuff about what we’d all like to see prioritized in the ~ideal free JP course~.
(full disclosure this post is long, but I’m excited!! hope you guys are too :D)
definitely I know when it comes to jp the phonetic kana systems are probably the most important to learn in full, and I wasn’t dissatisfied with my experience learning the writing and readings. but, the fact that when tackling kanji, duo never addresses radicals or the etymology of different readings makes it nigh impossible to grasp on more than a “this squiggle happens to be in this word” way, which makes it hard to recognize those kanji in any other context / words. (and being that the kanji learning feature was highly anticipated, this was a big letdown.)
that being said, I hope lingonaut makes kanji a priority all its own, and lets us learn/practice radicals, onyomi and kunyomi readings (and when each might be used), and vocabulary, all with meaningful context. I know it’s much easier said than done, but I’d like to assert that it does worlds of good to at least keep all these things in mind when structuring a course for maximum learner satisfaction!
and uhh as an additional discussion bunny, how does everyone feel about mnemonics?
I’m personally a big fan of them, but I’d love to hear y’all’s perspective on them. both their value as a learning tool, and how traditional / historically rooted you think they ought to be for you to learn best. do you think it’s the more absurd the better? or do you prefer it more grounded in the kanji’s conception? do you like using them more for readings, radicals/composition memorization, or both? let me know~~~ I’m curious (*´ω`*) 見てくれてありがとう〜♪

I ended up getting a comment from one of the course creators, and though it ended up deleted, I’ll go ahead and clarify just in case for anyone who’d appreciate the clarity: by etymology I definitely mean both the development from middle chinese And the radicals/components of the kanji. I like having the option to explore the “how” and “why” behind characters and words if at all possible, such as what the logic behind the radicals may have been, if there are any historical anecdotes attached to a specific kanji’s design, if the phrase was originally something else but got modified over time, etcetera.
I know not every learner really cares to know all that, so I’m not necessarily advocating for it to be an unskippable part of the course, lest it throw people off their flow or intimidate a new learner, but! I’m definitely saying it’d be a great thing to have as an expandable explanation tab when learning. maybe listed under “Why?” or “History Lesson” under whatever you’re studying, or something. idk lol
I definitely agree that there needs to be a huge focus on kanji right from the beginning, although I think it could be pretty hard to integrate it into the course!
I like mnemonics sometimes o:
I think weird ones can definitely stick better, but it totally depends on the person! Perhaps there could be a way to add your own mnemonics like on other sites.

@vekhove oh definitely, I love coming up with my own mnemonics! kanji garden is what I’m using at the moment even though it’s real slow, and I do love both the historical anecdotes and space to save your own notes on each kanji, including mnemonics. if lingonaut ends up having similar features with added sentence and listening practice… well, I think that’d be pretty perfect imo. I just hope coding all that won’t be a herculean task for creatonauts 😵💫