[Vocab] WaniKani Expansion Pack v1.0 - 1/13/2016 - Now on Memrise!

WaniKani API And Third-Party Apps
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UPDATE 1/13/2016 - Now on Memrise!

The expansion pack is now available as a Memrise course. You can find it here: http://www.memrise.com/course/948427/hello-167/

There's also an Anki version courtesy of Hinekidori. Get it here: /t/Some-Supplemental-Material/8121/1

UPDATE 6/22/2015 - v1.0 Release

Hello everyone! I'm happy to announce a major update to the WaniKani Expansion Pack. First off, I'd like to thank everyone who sent in corrections to the previous release

There are a number of changes in this version.

- MORE VOCAB! The v1.0 release contains 4,741 additional vocab words beyond those included on WaniKani, arranged in the same order that their kanji are taught on WK. This is more than 1,700 new words since the previous release, and the current version covers all kanji vocab from a popular Core6000 deck that use WK kanji, in addition to other examples for WK kanji where there are very few listed on the site.

- UPDATES AND FIXES! Since I posted the v0.9 pack, WaniKani has added 57 words from that pack to the site. (Coincidence?) They are removed in this version so you won't feel like you're seeing double. There were also a few typos, reading errors, and other dumb things I'd overlooked in the previous version, which are now fixed.

The download link for the updated pack is here.

What is the WaniKani Expansion Pack?

The WaniKani Expansion Pack consists of 4,741 additional vocab words for levels 1-50, intended to provide additional reading practice for kanji learned on WK. I was first motivated to start this project when I realized that many of the kanji I had trouble remembering were those for which WaniKani only gives one or two vocab examples containing that kanji. When you see a kanji infrequently, it's hard to remember its meaning and reading. When you see a kanji all the time, reading it becomes second nature. So I made a database of all the kanji on the site and the number of vocab examples containing that kanji, and made a deck of additional vocab examples from Jisho's common words database, such that each kanji on the site has a minimum of 8 vocab examples (or as many common words as Jisho lists). The spreadsheet tool I developed also checks all the kanji in each vocab word and determines which WaniKani level it corresponds to, i.e., by what level you'll have unlocked all the kanji contained in the vocab word. This way, you can review vocab appropriate to your current level and kanji knowledge.

What isn't the WaniKani Expansion Pack?

Because Jisho is a fairly imperfect resource, I can't claim that all the entries are the most common, useful vocab examples that are out there. There may be entries for which Jisho's "common words" tag is outdated or inappropriate, or where different words might be more common or useful. Cross-checking the current vocab list against other resources, like Wikipedia's list of the most common words in all of their Japanese articles, is a major next step in improving the quality and usefulness of the database. Another important point is that the expansion pack is not intended to be a "core" deck. Many of the kanji in the higher levels of WK having only a handful of common words, compared to lower level kanji which may have dozens. Since the point of this project was just to ensure a certain minimum number of words for each kanji, this means that I may have only picked 8 example vocab for a kanji that had 40 common words on Jisho, so there are likely to be lots of common vocab words that are not included, especially at the lower levels. This is really not much different than WaniKani's approach, which is to give enough vocab examples that you get comfortable reading the kanji in context, but doesn't purport to be an exhaustive list of useful examples.

How do I use it?

There are links to Memrise and Anki courses at the top of this post. Additionally, the course is offered in a number of .csv files broken up by level, that are most easily used with Doublevil's Houhou SRS application, but could also be imported to the WaniKani self-study extension without much trouble. I really like using Houhou, since it provides a very similar experience to reviewing on WK, can store its database in a Dropbox folder to sync reviews between multiple computers, and has some really nifty features for looking up and adding your own vocab if you feel like it.

To add the WK Expansion Pack items to Houhou, choose "Import SRS items..." on the SRS tab and choose the CSV file you'd like to add. Check the box signifying that the first line is a header, and leave the other options at their defaults (semicolon, double-quote, UTF-8 encoding):



Hit “Next” and make sure that “Kanji Readings,” “Accepted Meanings,” “Accepted Readings,” and “Tags” are all selected in their respective drop-down menus, and that item type is “Set as Vocab” instead of “Auto”:



Before you hit “next,” scroll down in the same window and set how many new items you’d like to review per day. These decks contain 200-400 items depending on the level, so choose a comfortable number. 15-20 is a nice, middle-of-the-road range. Also select to see them “In Import Source Order” so that your items show up in the same order as their WaniKani levels:



Hit “next” a couple more times and you’re ready to review. Since Houhou doesn’t have a lessons feature, you’ll probably just have to guess at reading and meaning the first time you see an item, but you’ll be shown the correct reading and meaning if you type an incorrect answer, or something random like “I don’t know.” Others might be obvious, even if they’re new to you.

WaniKani Expansion Pack Download Links:

The files can be found here! Check the filenames for the levels you’d like to download.

What’s Next?, Contact Info, Etc.

Short of correcting any problems with the current release, I don’t plan to release another update until after the next 10 WaniKani levels have been added to the site. I’ve done a fair amount of work building my own kanji and vocab lists for levels 51-60, but my proposed kanji lists ended up being pretty different from the kanji Tofugu has chosen to teach in the next ten levels. In order to avoid getting out of sync with the site’s official content, I’m going to wait until the new levels are done before expanding the pack or making additional updates.

In any case, email me if you have questions about the project, and especially if you find typos, mistakes, or any other dumb stuff I did while making this! I can be reached at: thomyorke64 (at) gmail (dot) com

Thanks everyone, and enjoy! :slight_smile:

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Absolutely awesome work, thanks ninja! Really looking forwards to all the things yet to come!

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I saw you hinting at this on the forums once, so glad you posted it!
Question about the master spreadsheet - what does CWE stand for? I was wondering if that was something important I should study/look up or if that’s a term specific to this sheet.

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It’s filled with my own terminology! CWE means “common words exhausted,” meaning that Jisho didn’t have enough common words listed for that kanji to add a total of eight examples in the expansion + the ones already on WK. It’s in there for my own reference so I know which kanji to double-check against other resources to see if there are any useful words I’m missing based on Jisho alone.

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I remember a while back you were thinking of a way to add in the rest of the Jouyou Kanji. This looks amazing.

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This is really amazing! Thanks for all the work you have put in this. I was just wondering, given that I don’t particularly like Anki nor can I use Houhou (which is a great shame cause it looks awesome, but I use Mac), would it be possible for me to make a personal Memrise course with the files you have uploaded? Or is it best I just wait for a potential Houhou for Mac or the memorise course you mentioned you would do?

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nicholashorton said... This is really amazing! Thanks for all the work you have put in this. I was just wondering, given that I don't particularly like Anki nor can I use Houhou (which is a great shame cause it looks awesome, but I use Mac), would it be possible for me to make a personal Memrise course with the files you have uploaded? Or is it best I just wait for a potential Houhou for Mac or the memorise course you mentioned you would do?
 You can make a personal Memrise course with the files, you just need to change the CSV to tab delimited or comma delimited, where currently it uses a semicolon. Then you can copy paste the text into Memrise. Feel free to do whatever you want with the files! You can make your own now or wait for mine to be finished.

I doubt there will be a Houhou for Mac since it relies on a framework that's Windows-only, but the Memrise option should work just fine.
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Is there no way to learn the words before the reviews like wanikani has a lessons section? (that is unless I look at the spreadsheet)

because at the moment I’m just reviewing and failing them to see the meanings/readings.

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Epicwhale said... Is there no way to *learn* the words before the reviews like wanikani has a lessons section? (that is unless I look at the spreadsheet)

because at the moment I'm just reviewing and failing them to see the meanings/readings.
If you are using Houhou, then nope, sorry. Think of your first review as a lesson.
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I have noticed a few things whilst making my Memrise course with the master spreadsheet:

çŸąé±ˆ is level 3
扃戀 is level 61 but placed between level 2 and 3
蕎éșŠ, 林æȘŽ are both level 5

I’ll check up to level 13 but I’ll have to leave others work on the rest.

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Yep, the issue with those is that those terms contain kanji that aren’t covered by WaniKani or any of the remaining 474 Joyo kanji not on WK, so I’ve been going back and forth on what to do with them. Initially my thinking was to just teach them in line with other words, so 扃戀 would be level 2 since 扃 wouldn’t actually be taught at any point in the 60 levels. Then I decided that maybe they should have their own category in level 61, and that any common terms using really obscure kanji could be taught after all of Joyo is complete.

I already removed 扃戀 from the 1-10 vocab list but must have missed the others. Thanks for the heads up that I need to move those other terms to level 61 as well.

Edit: The 1-10 file now has the three other non-joyo examples removed. Thanks! I also clarified that you need to set the item type to “vocab” to avoid problems with some of the single-kanji vocab words.

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ă‚ă‚ŠăŒăšă†ă”ă–ă„ăŸă—ăŸă€‚:D 


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Wow, thanks for all the work! Glad to see it finally come to fruition. I’ll try importing some of these to Houhou tonight.

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Help please:  if I download a pack, where do I put it?  It wants to download in “Open Office” format.  In the CSV Parsing Configuration the top line is the path to go to, and I don’t know what to put there.

Sorry to be so computer illiterate
but this sounds good and I would like to try it.

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Lin said... Help please:  if I download a pack, where do I put it?  It wants to download in "Open Office" format.  In the CSV Parsing Configuration the top line is the path to go to, and I don't know what to put there.

Sorry to be so computer illiterate...but this sounds good and I would like to try it.
 You can save the pack anywhere, just make sure you can find it. Then when you get to the CSV Parsing dialog, use the "browse" button and locate the file wherever you saved it. The CSV file is only used during the import, so you don't need to put it in any special place.

CSV is one of the formats used by OpenOffice so it might show up that way, that's not a problem.
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When it comes in the Open Office file, the Kanji are in different nonsense symbols
does/will that make a difference in how they appear in HouHou?
I tried changing the type to Minchu and MinchuUI but that didn’t work.

Thanks for your help
so far!

Okay I converted it to UTF8 and now it looks right.  Hopefully I can go on now!

Okay 2
I did it!  Thanks for your clear directions!

------=
Now I have tried to review and instead of meanings on some of the vocab I am getting “n”  which I assume means noun and comes from further over if I look at the spread sheet.  Is it all messed up?  How do I fix it?

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This seems sick. Not sure when I should start doing them though. Maybe I’ll wait til level 20 and get the added bonus of someone actually testing this before me. :wink:

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You da man, BreadstickNinja.