KristinHolly wrote:

However, I think she and my parents would be disturbed by some of the user-contributed stories, and I don't want coal in my stocking next year.

On the other hand, most of the 13 year olds I knew as a 13 year old were busy furiously masturbating to guro, so it can be hard to say.

...Crap, I'm not enhancing the safety of the forum at all, am I?

But in seriousness, it's something that's been getting a lot of talk around here lately, but just isn't feasible at the present moment. I hope that you find a way to help her with it, though, as young language learners absolutely delight me.

Thank you for your suggestions. 

QuackingShoe, I think perhaps 13-yr-old boys and 13-yr-old girls tend to have different interests.  Anyway, the parents would take a different view regardless.

Rich, thank you for the Anki suggestion.  I hadn't seen that site before, and it looks like something that will be useful for me.  However, all of the kanji cards are linked to the stories on this site, with all the advantages and disadvantages that brings. 

Unfortunately, I don't live near my parents, so there's not a whole lot I can do to help set up the program or flashcards; it does look like some small changes in the settings for the cards would eliminate the links.  I guess she could just use the books and some paper.

KristinHolly wrote:

However, all of the kanji cards are linked to the stories on this site, with all the advantages and disadvantages that brings.

I think you may be looking at the wrong site. This is the Anki I'm talking about:

http://ichi2.net/anki/download/index.html

It's a stand-alone program (which comes with an RTK1 deck) that isn't linked to the site at all. She can use the program, load the Heisig deck (that's what the RTK1 deck is called), and put her own stories on the back of her cards. (Or on the front in white on white text if she wants to use them as hints.)

And if she gets stumped trying to come up with a suitable story, she could always get in touch with you.

Also, make sure to watch the screencasts/videos he has on the site first-- they do an excellent job of explaining how it works, and will probably answer most questions you may have.

If fabrice is reading this, I actually had an idea that I think would be pretty decent for a kids version of this site. What if you could just duplicate the whole site and have it accessed from a different url (kids.koohii.com?). The duplicate site would function the same way, except normal users would not have the ability to share stories. There could be some specific people given the ability to share stories, and then they could go through and copy the most useful kid-friendly stories into the new site.

This seems like it would be an easy solution, but maybe it's not. Thoughts?

Huh. I didn't know that the kanji in the Heisig Anki deck linked to the site.

Well, you could always just export the deck to a tab-delimited file, then re-import it into something like Open Office, and remove the links (if they're still there) to the site, then re-import it into anki.

Kids have heard it all, but that's really beside the point..  As has been said already, the site is hardly offensive.

There are a few stories every so often that have ambiguous sexual orientation, or make reference to drugs or marijuana, but they're largely ignorable unless you were looking for such a story in the first place...

And what exactly are we trying to hide from these kids?.. common use words for genitalia or at worst, a biased opinion of a bigot?    Is seeing such a story going to inspire a teenager to be a worse person?   Will a story including a drug reference make a kid interested in such a thing?  There are drugs and drug users out there and simply knowing that information has no actual impact.

Even a story with racial discrimination which I would imagine to be the most offensive type of story doesn't need to be shielded from the eyes of a young person.  A teenager would receive it in the same way that any adult would (And hopefully that story would have received plenty of 'reports' to put it in its place).


But anyway, I think suffah has the right idea. If you don't want to invite her into the site, have her work through the book and give her the tips you've learned through your own experience with Heisig and RtK.


But also, anyone interested in Japan and Japanese has likely already been assaulted by hentai and enjoys their fair share of normal anime; which is not afraid to touch on violence, nudity, and other themes that might be called 'un-American' here in the west.

alyks wrote:

I fail to see what's wrong with a kid seeing something unclean. Will it corrupt them and make them EVIL!? Will they suddenly start doing DRUGS!?

I think this is a real issue. The problem is that kids are impressionable. Sure, many kids will not be affected, but the problem is that why subject those that are to unnecessary risks.

An adult can (I hope!) make a story with sexual, sexist, racist, drug-related, &c content purely on the grounds that it makes a good mnemonic, fully realizing that it doesn't represent their true attitude to the issue.

In fact Heisig does himself, but always clarifies that what he is saying is reprehensible if it were someone's real attitude.

However we don't add such clarifications or camouflage our stories. That means that impressionable young readers are exposed bad ideas.

QuackingShoe wrote:

KristinHolly wrote:

QuackingShoe, I think perhaps 13-yr-old boys and 13-yr-old girls tend to have different interests.  Anyway, the parents would take a different view regardless.

It was supposed to be largely a joke, but thanks for the really random sexism. Particularly as the person in question was a young girl.

That's the whole point of her reply. I think it was quite justified, and not sexist at all.


Perhaps a simple interim measure is to add a word of advice to the site saying that in rare occasions,  it helps people to remember a kanji by a mnemonic that contains a socially unacceptable point of view, but that this does not represent the author's genuine view on the matter, nor does this site condone such a view, or something like that. What do people think about that?

I think this is a real issue. The problem is that kids are impressionable. Sure, many kids will not be affected, but the problem is that why subject those that are to unnecessary risks.

An adult can (I hope!) make a story with sexual, sexist, racist, drug-related, &c content purely on the grounds that it makes a good mnemonic, fully realizing that it doesn't represent their true attitude to the issue.

In fact Heisig does himself, but always clarifies that what he is saying is reprehensible if it were someone's real attitude.

However we don't add such clarifications or camouflage our stories. That means that impressionable young readers are exposed bad ideas.

I would hope that a 13 year old would have the intelligence to know at least basic right or wrong by then. If they didn't, something's very wrong.

I also think there should be a kid-friendly site. Not every 13 year old is interested in or desensitized to sex.

Even at (almost) 20, I don't want to read sexual or crude stories.

Mcjon01 wrote:

I think all this fuss could be solved if the first thing everyone was forced to do after getting online for the first time was to browse 4chan for a week or so.  Sure, it might turn you into an amoral sociopath, but lord knows there'll be nothing left on the internet to offend you.

Genius. Or maybe we should not be so afraid of offensive things and learn to be adults about it? Maybe we should teach our kids how to deal with the real world instead of trying to protect them from everything?

I'm with marydj.  I have no doubt that the sexual stories are fine for some kids and that some parents would be perfectly fine with that.  And of course this varies by age, too.  I think that all the OP is asking for is a tool to enable the parents to do their job of parenting. 

The level of effort to implement it probably makes this a non-starter for a while, but this hardly seems like an unreasonable thing to want. 

One other thing.  A common refrain on this forum is that it's important to do what works for you personally, not what works for other people.  That's just as true, if not more, in the case of parenting.  Everybody has an opinion on the right way to raise children (including me) and most people are very willing to express those opinions (including me).  But only the actual parents are close enough to have any idea of what will work in their particular situation.

(By the way, alyks, check the finished thread in about 20 minutes...)

OK, I was trying to be nice before.  Let me be more specific. 

You're not her parent.  Nor is the OP, for that matter.  The OP brought up a feature that would be nice for parents to have in order to allow their children to make use of the site.  (I, for one, would not have been able to finish without the stories on the site, so I appreciate the value of that.)  Your opinions on what a girl should or should not be allowed to see aren't really relevant to whether this would be a valuable tool. 

In addition, this girl is not the only child who might benefit from the site.  marydj's kids could also benefit, and there could certainly be others.  So, should her 8-year old be old enough for the stories?