Wondering if anyone has had any good or bad experiences to share jumping ahead to study the WK items manually.
I’m currently level 7, but wanting to learn more quickly. The past week or so, I’ve spent cramming radicals 1-491and have gotten around 450 of them down pat. Only a handful are a real struggle still, but it’s going well so far.
It’s made starting level 6 and 7 very nice being able to breeze thru radicals. It’s actually kinda nice motivation to level up–just knocking radicals outta the park.
But I’m getting to where I’m figuring to move onto jumping ahead with the kanji. Curious if anyone has any advice on this since it’s a much bigger beast than the radicals.
I think this is not a bad idea.
After all, once you start reading, you would find a lot of items you haven’t yet learned on WaniKani…
Then again, the important thing is not to overexert yourself.
So, I’d recommend jumping ahead, but if you start feeling overwhelmed – then lower your pace a little.
The important thing is to keep studying every day and not burn out.
Some days you’d be able to do more, some days – you wouldn’t have as much strength, but the important thing is to do at least a bit of studying every day!
What happened for me is that at around level 25 I started spending more time reading Japanese (mainly in the form of manga and videogames in my case) which naturally exposed me to all sorts of kanji I hadn’t yet encountered in WaniKani. I managed to learn some common kanji and vocab that way, which felt like a nice freebie when I finally unlocked them months later in the course.
As for studying WaniKani entries specifically ahead of time, I’m sure it won’t hurt but it seems a bit inefficient. The whole point is to have the SRS system do the scheduling for you. I would personally prefer to use that time to study grammar or read Japanese, but if you like your method then have fun!
Personally I would put more time in other learning areas instead of jumping ahead in WaniKani. Learning vocab that is relevant to what I’m consuming at the moment, watching/listening to get better at it, reading manga/novels, looking for irl opportunities to use Japanese, or studying grammar.
Depending on what I’m in the mood for and what my weak points are.
On the other hand, language learning doesn’t have to be 100% efficient and if you are having fun doing it then go for it. It’s not like pre-learning the items will harm you in any way. In the end the goal is always to know all the items.
Without telling much about yourself and real world attempts, I’d assume a beginner.
imo, if you have time, take a look well at what you will want to be doing. Maybe reading, listening, or speaking; and try to the simplest version of that.
Simplest and fewest things usually mean there aren’t that many Kanji. Vocabularies (with same old Kanji) and grammar are usually in the way, especially if you don’t try too read too many books or too many chapters at once.
Reading with a dictionary and a grammar reference if you have to. Search the internet once a while if you have to. Take short notes and frequently look at them if you have to.
btw, Kanji don’t help much with words usually in Kana… A lot of real world things don’t come with breakdown and mnemonics.
I’ve had a few years in school including a year in Saitama–though I wasn’t the most diligent student. And have done around 900 kanji with RTK…but life got in the way these last few years and I’ve forgotten probably 90% or what I’ve learned.
I am listening to stuff, watching unsubbed anime, and reading on the side. But vocabulary/kanji seems like the biggest barrier to understanding.
Decided to jump back on the wagon with WaniKani because 1 I hated not being able to read despite having the gist of a buncha kanji from RTK…ultimately what I remember dropped from around 800 to like 200…(but not wasted since things sometime at least look familiar) and 2 a friend from school who’d kept up with his studies did wanikani. Caught up with him recently asking how his Japanese was and he said, “well, I can read novels.” So that was pretty inspiring.
But yeah, I’m playing a bit of catch up. I guess I could have mentioned all this up front too as a hurdle I’m facing now is having studied up into N3 material in the past, but now all my knowledge is full of holes… and it’s hard to fill in the gaps without just starting from scratch.
But anyway, I’m trying to learn kanji asap. Figuring if I can read things without as many bumps in the road it’ll be easier to learn grammar and such
If you have basics, I think the general advice is to try reading/listening mostly easier things, and go the way up, focusing on consistency – so maybe Every Day Challenge threads. learnnatively.com can help you find easier stuff. Also take a look at Japanese Language > Book Clubs (which doesn’t have only books).
Challenging yourself, or getting seduced by more challenging stuff, once in a while, isn’t a bad idea too. Don’t afraid to DNF (Do Not Finish) and maybe retry years later. Don’t waste too much time on too challenging stuff.
There is nothing bad with watching anime with JP sub, just the idea is to staying in the learning zone… even if that isn’t 100% listening.
Personally, I started WaniKani at lower point than you. Maybe N5, with experience trying various things in Japan. Early levels were accompanied by grammar, writing, anime EN sub. I started to be able to read more at around L20-30. I added Core 10k deck sorted by Kanji level, focusing on vocab not in WaniKani at around L30-40.
Anyway, I didn’t learn Kanji ahead, nor learn Kana-only words that much. I did EN vocab → handwriting too, but don’t particularly recommend it at this point. Make a mnemonic by my own sometimes, but looking up words (via HTML hyperlinks) almost always.
I didn’t keep doing SRS forever. Having a low time with no SRS, before reading with taking notes of vocabularies (with Google Sheets, and noting some trivia / mnemonics), before eventually decided to restart WaniKani (L60 → L2). WaniKani doesn’t teach all readings of a Kanji and also missing several vocab exceptions. Sometimes also missing some important meanings of a Kanji. Maybe I would say not to expect too much here.
Thanks for the link, I’ve never heard of that site before! I’m making my way thru Yotsubato, and but it’ll be nice to find something to change things up a bit.
As for jumping ahead with WK kanji. I think I’m gonna just go for it. Will probably report back in a few months.
