Anki WaniKani Bidirectional Sync AddOn

WaniKani API And Third-Party Apps
1

Based on the WK3: Tokyo Drift deck for card style and JavaScript.

The AddOn supports bi-directional sync, if so desired by the user.
Besides syncing the cards themselves, it can optionally sync the Card-Due-Times to the times on WaniKani, and additionally report any reviews done by the user back to WaniKani, so you progress on the Website while learning in Anki.

This generally only works properly at all if Anki was never used to study WK before.
If you used the WK3 deck before and migrated to this addon, I’d highly recommend not turn on the Due-Time-Sync, since it might heavily mess up your study schedule.
Instead, there is a function to automatically report reviews for all mature (interval >=21 days)
notes to WaniKani, which can be optionally automatically run on every Anki startup, to over time
bring your WK-Profile up to date with your Anki-Progress.

The most simple way to use the AddOn is to only use it to sync the Subjects from WaniKani,
and periodically update them.
But you can also have the AddOn sync only your current lessons and reviews, and report the reviews as you make them. You should probably turn on auto sync in that mode, so new cards appear on their own as you unlock them on WK.

It’s not possible to sync notes your WaniKani account does not have access to.
So if you are on a free account, you’ll be limited to the first three levels.

After installation, a WaniKani submenu will appear in the Tools-Menu of Anki.
This is where you control all actions. The menu items should be self explanatory.

Doing a full sync initially takes a long time, due to it having to download all the audio clips.
If you on top of that enable the context patterns fetching (which are parsed out of the Website until they are available via the API) it will take much much longer once more, due to rate limiting.
I’d recommend a two-step sync if you want to go that route: Sync without context patterns first, let it download all the audio. Then clear cache, turn on pattern fetching, and sync again.

The AddOn is available on Github: GitHub - BtbN/Anki-WaniKaniSync
And on Ankiweb: WaniKani Sync - AnkiWeb

2 Likes
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This is so cool. Not sure why it wasn’t picked up by others here. I’m currently experimenting with extending this addon to support the WaniKani community AI mnemonic images. Also have found a few issues with the card templates on AnkiMobile (iOS). @Oromit it’s probably easiest to collaborate on GitHub (filing issues, PRs if you’re willing to accept them)?

3

This sounds interesting…
Generally speaking, what are the advantages and disadvantages to using the WK Site directly?

E.g. is the following supported?

  • Entering Answers with the keyboard
  • Marking answers with typos as correct
  • Marking answers that were rated correct as incorrect
  • Anki Mobile (iOS)
  • Offline usage after initial sync

If I understand correctly, it is not possible to only use Anki Scheduling and then sync back the whole progress to WK?

4

Syncing the progress form Anki to WK is the only direction that works at all. Given that Anki does not like something else dictating its review schedule.
You can use the synced deck offline, but obviously nothing can be synced then.

Not sure if you used Anki before, but you can happily hit whatever button you like, no matter what you entered, or if you entered anything at all.

5

I didn’t make the templates, they’re from a pre-existing deck. Feel free to send PRs if you have any fixes for them!
I don’t use Anki mobile, so no idea how it looks there or if it works at all.

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Great, I’ll try to fix the AnkiMobile issues then and send a PR. I have a mostly working version of AI mnemonic images support if you’re interested in that, otherwise happy to keep it in my fork.

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I don’t really want to cram too many features in there.
Specially given that I replaced a lot of the mnemonics with my own, I don’t think I want to merge that.