Already noticing improvement

Hi guys, I’m still relatively new to Wanikani (level 2), but I must say I’m already noticing an improvement in recognizing kanji out in the wild. What are some recommendations for supplemental material to help sharpen my skills? I’ve heard that Wanikani doesn’t have vocab that only consists of kana, is there a good way to study these specifically?

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I’ve noticed (through reading these forums, and from my own experience) that after a few weeks/months of doing WaniKani, people often notice that their hiragana is doing really well, but katakana is not doing so well. Maybe this is because the WaniKani web interface uses lots of hiragana, but it takes other things to get exposed to katakana.

Considering this, you might start using one of the katakana word learning decks for Anki or Kitsun.io, to learn useful words while rounding out your kana skills

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Installing the [Userscript] WaniKani Katakana Madness can also be of help.

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Start reading. NHK news easy is good source. Also you can try to read japanese comments on your favorite social media. In conclusion increasing your exposure to kanji will help alot. I hate kana.

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While I’m not saying you should neglect Katakana or kana words in general, focusing on grammar and vocabulary is what I suggest.
So depending on how much time you can dedicate to your Japanese studies:

  1. Kaniwani [Free] is what you should run in parallel with Wanikani to reinforce what you know.
  2. Bunpro [Paid] is a must. It reinforces vocabulary and teaches you grammar. It will become much easier to recognize words you listen/hear if you can take the grammatical syntax out of the equation… [An advice: use the WK key so that kanji you know are shown without furigana] [Also if you start the free month trial, try to do as much grammar as you can. Studying all N5 points in the first month is perfectly doable]
  3. Torii [Free] is my third suggestion. Since you mentioned kana only words, Torii has a kana only option. I personally hated that route because I would always get my 「-」 wrong… but it is a valid tool.
  4. Also at some point you will take recognizing single kanji for granted. But you’ll be frustrated you can’t recognize what word it is and what reading you should use for those kanji. The 10k option in Torii (or the [2/4/6/8/10]K in Anki will help you.
    Good luck with your Japanese studies!
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