So, yeah, placement test, and in the questions where they ask me to translate English to Japanese with word banks, I can do the translation if I listen to what each word with Kanji sounds like, even though I don’t know the Kanji in itself. Is it bad if I keep doing so? Am I cheating the system? I’m sowwy if I’m spamming >_<
You should post the question on your other thread, as to not spam, but I don’t think it’s much of a problem.
You’re not cheating the system, since the system provides you with the sound and is probably looking for vocabulary knowledge instead of kanji knowledge, otherwise you couldn’t bypass it.
On the other hand, you should look into kanji; perhaps not study it yet if you don’t feel comfortable, but it seems that you don’t even know what kanji is, which is just another (the more common and convenient) writing system for Japanese.
I knew a lot of vocabulary and even some grammar before I started studying kanji, but you basically won’t be able to do any reading without it. (Which is fine if that’s not what you want yet.)
I’m still new to this format and have trouble going around, so please excuse me this one time 
And thanks, I was getting worried if I was doing something wrong, or if my lessons would be flooded with alien Kanji just cuz I could answer questions with Kanji rn. And of course I know what Kanji is, that’s exactly why I’m here, is it not? I may be dumb, but not that dumb 
Yeah, I know some vocab and grammar as well, and can basically make my own sentences if I know certain words. My vocab is not as vast, and I need to know the script, at the least, if I have to qualify even as a beginner, hence why I’m here!
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Sorry for assuming. 
I mostly thought that because of how you said things on your other post:
Now I don’t know much bout anything other than Hiragana or Katakana so am assuming it’s Kanji or whatnot
Good luck on your learning. 
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Keep in mind that the voice attached to the word bank is computer generated. You will find that it will give readings that are not appropriate for the sentence in the question. This may lead you to “learn” the wrong way and screw you up on WK.
Whoa, I better be careful, then! But I don’t pay much attention to those Kani anyway, so I guess it won’t be that big of a problem? My vocab is fairly grounded, so minor errors in Hiragana/Katakana I can manage, but I’ll be careful nonetheless. Thanks!
It’s definitely not the best to do so, but it’s also not the end of the world. Duolingo teaches you Kanji quite randomly, where it gives you quite complicated kanji that are quite hard to memorize, which is why I believe that Wanikani is very useful. Through Wanikani, i’ve been able to get through Duolingo lessons in less than 3 minutes because I already know the kanji that Duolingo is trying to teach me through Wanikani. For other cases though, it can be hard, but don’t worry, you’re not really cheating the system, as the Duolingo is oriented more for general sentence structure and understanding rather than Kanji knowledge. Wanikani will help you with that.
Random and unrelated post, but is that Elfen Lied on your profile picture? I’m going to be watching the series over the next couple of weeks, what did you think of it?
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It is.
Unfortunately, I’ve read the manga twice and loved it, but I only saw the anime ending because I was told it was different than the manga ending.
From what I saw, the anime is good, but the manga covers a lot more.
I should probably watch it at some point.
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I’m actually on the verge of giving up Duolingo. Idk, but after knowing WK, it just seems… off. What do you think? Maybe I’m just not doing it right?
Where are you at in Duolingo? I’m currently finishing up Activity 2. I think that Duolingo teaches you the basics quite well, but outside of that you need to use some other resources. I definitely think it’s useful, however I believe that it doesn’t do a good job with reviewing vocab. I use a quizlet for that where I write down the new terms I learned with their meaning so that I can review them later.
See, I use Duolingo for sentence structure and some vocab. (I use bunpro for grammar and WK for kanji and vocab).If you find a replacement website that both teaches you sentence structure and vocab, and you find it better than DL, the drop it. Otherwise, I think its quite important, and it doesn’t necessarily take too long. I’m probably going to finish the whole program in 2.5 months, maybe less.
Does Duolingo have any associated lessons/reading that I’m missing, or does it just provide the quizzes? I feel like I’m missing half the picture or something. A “here are some new words to learn” or “in this lesson focus on the way we use the particle x which is different from the particle y because reasons” would be very helpful.
nope, it’s basically immersion, repetition, repetition, pattern recognition and more repetition. The early lessons have some grammar tips if you click on the light bulb that appears when you start a session. I use DL as a tool for getting a feel for the language as it is used rather than in isolated bits of grammar, vocab and kanji. I also use Mango languages for the same reason.
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Well the comments section in Duolingo can help you with grammar specific questions. Outside of that, I recommend bun pro as a way to completely understand Japanese grammar.
Okay. 
Thank you for confirming that.
Yeah, bun pro is good (in fact, I was going to come back to it after a few levels here. Thanks for the reminder). I’ve just been using Duolingo as a tertiary learning resource, trying to reinforce the other learning I’m doing, but it still felt kinda bare.
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Haha I’m lagging quite a bit, just about to reach activity 1 but that makes sense now. WK is excellent for learning Kanji, but since I don’t have any Japanese textbooks and Tofugu doesn’t seem to have grammar lessons otherwise, I think Duolingo should suffice for its share of vocab and sentence structure. I’ll try to finish it as well, thanks!
I hear that if you do duolingo on PC, there are grammar explanations etc. Apparently they don’t exist on the mobile app.
Generally though, duolingo is not considered a very good resource for Japanese in the learning community.
IKR
For all the hype it gets, I was let down by how things had turned out at the beginning. Good to know that it’s only so for Japanese tho, I was considering not using it for French >_<
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