Advice for using Genki for self-study?

Hi all! Been making some good progress on my kanji through WK (hoping to start burning some stuff soon), but I’m feeling a little intimidated on learning non-kanji vocab and grammar. Anyone have advice for using Genki as a self-learner?

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I recommend following along with this playlist by Tokini Andy for self study. He gives great explanations along with every chapter and if you’re willing to pay a little extra you can access his Patreon content (although I’ve found the free content to be plenty).

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You beat me to it!

Also @16note don’t feel ashamed to go over it multiple times. Sometimes things don’t sink in right away and that extra bit of review can make the world of difference.

Good luck :slight_smile:

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It’s probably just my own preference, but for me following this rutine works best:

  • read all grammar poinst and dialogs in the book, skip excercises. (It will give you general idea of all the grammar that the book presents)
  • Watch all Tokini Andy lessons for the book (consolidates what you learned in book)
  • Go through the book from the begining, this time doing it properly like reading grammar, doing excercises from grammar book and workbook, learning kanji

Why this order?
I like to think about it as 'lil SRS in which you cover e.g. lesson 1 by reading grammar (think apprentice), the after a couple of days you see lesson 1 in Andy channel (guru), and after next couple of days you drill it into your brain by doing excercises (master).
For me just spaces repetition works in this case :crabigator:

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Also hello to fellow 11 leveler :smiley:
Went through my first burns yesterday, felt awesome and I am sure you will feel the same way too

Thanks y’all! For vocab things, should I just be building an Anki deck and trying to get into the same rhythm I have for WK? How do you deal with knowing kanji vs. non-kanji vocab? I know at the start Genki uses kana for some words I’ve already learned kanji for, should I just swap it when I know I’ve learned the vocab on WK?

An Anki vocab deck is a good start. I have two that I use. The core6k (10k was too intimidating at the start) sorted in WK and frequency order and the Tango N5 words.

Be careful replacing kana words with kanji words. Many common words in Japanese are written without frequently, so being able to catch them is useful. Many of those words (being common) are taught on WK with their kanji, though, since that’s the point of WK. You might be better off learning both. It’s really a case by case basis, though and depends on the individual word.

An additional reason to leave the kana is that many native learner materials which you might want to read (books and manga for younger readers) will also write in kana, even when the word is written with kanji for adults. So again, if you’re going to make use of those materials, you want to be able to read them in that form.

TL;DR Where it comes to learning kana/kanji forms of words, it depends.

Oh wow, good to know! Do you happen to have a link to this 6k WK order? This is the first I’m hearing about core6k or 10k, honestly.

Lots of people already mention some of my recommendations. The ones missing are:

  1. Listen to all dialogues on the CD (I play it when I drive)
  2. Find someone to correct your Workbook exercises, at least the ones in which you have to create your own sentences.
  3. Do not neglect any section in the book and workbook. The 読み書き編 section is easy to miss since it is at the end of the book but its chapters run in parallel with the chapters of the main section.
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There’s quite a few of them out there. Mine I had to script myself, because I had already started the deck before I started WK, so I had to do some data munging. Here’s two : Core2k/6k Sentences by Wanikani Level and So Much Vocab!. I don’t know which are good or bad. There’s also a bunch of the coreNk decks available on Anki’s shared site, if those don’t meet your expectations.

Note: I recommend you personalize whatever deck you use. Reformat the cards to your liking and replace the images to make your deck unique. This may seem like cat vacuuming, but making the deck comfortable and familiar really helps (at least for me) make the experience more pleasant.

A lot of good advice.
I would say to find Genki decks and begin SRS for each chapter about 1-2 weeks before you get to it in the book.
The book comes with a CD but it should be noted that the publisher, Japan Times, has a well-made app with all of the dialogues / answers.

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