hi! o/ i am a 17-year-old who has just completed level 3. wanikani has absolutely been the best thing i’ve used to help me learn japanese since i started 3 months ago in september.
unfortunately, since i reached level 4 now, i am forced to either pay for a subscription (which honestly i am unable to pay on my own, and my parents refuse to pay a wanikani subscription :C…) or completely stop the workflow that i have gotten used to. i’m afraid i will lose a lot of motivation to continue learning japanese (or it’ll be very hard at least…!)
so my question is: is there anything that’s kind of like wanikani (in terms of spaced repetition, a curated vocab list, and those “lesson” type thngs) but also inexpensive? i do use anki and immersion to learn japanese, but wanikani has been the main keystone for my language journey thus far.
i really DO appreciate wanikani, i’m just broke . if i was rich, i would absolutely pay for lifetime right away (i did the math and it’ll be the most economical subscription at my current pace even without the christmas sale). i truly think that such a high-quality service is worth the high premium. i just wish it was more accessible to people like me… (i could probably deal with a “freemium” version in which half the page is taken up by ads LOL but i digress)
any advice would be much appreciated! if anything, one day i’ll actually have a good-paying job in which i can freely purchase a lifetime subscription, but that might be in a few years from now :C
regardless, thank you,
penniless committed-to-the-crabigator wannabe
TLDR; any inexpensive WK alternatives? (or does anybody wanna cashapp my broke ahh 200 dollas )
kanji.koohii.com is free and features lots of user-made kanji mnemonics.
jpdb.io is free (with optional sub) and focuses on first learning kanji for vocab you actually want to learn (but you have to bring your own mnemonics).
I have a couple of friends who like to use Anki since it’s free. It’s an SRS flashcard deck program where you can make your own decks or download decks others have made, as well as a lot of options to customize them. There are tons of pre-made decks for Japanese learning that people have created and shared. My friends like Anki because it’s so customizable, but the downside to that is that you have to put effort into organizing your studies (whereas WaniKani has curated the whole program for you, which is essentially what you’re paying for).
A big reason why I didn’t start studying Japanese until my mid-20s was because I didn’t have the money to do so, so I understand how you feel! Just bought lifetime at the ripe age of 30 as a Christmas gift to myself The internet has some really fantastic resources for learning and studying, especially nowadays. Feel free to try out various things and use whatever best helps you learn. You’ve got this!
I wish they’d let us do a raffle for wk subscription codes in blocks of like 6 months. Id pitch in. Though some details would need to be worked out before then.
Just wanted to add that while you can’t use the SRS part of WK for levels above 3 without a paid subscription, you can use it to browse the items – you can read mnemonics and learn radicals, kanji and vocab for higher levels, you just won’t be able to SRS them.
Also, don’t forget, that even without a paid subscription, you are always welcome on this forum!
May you find the right tool for you (or the income to get WK subscription) and best of luck with your studies!
If you’re on Windows there’s a Kanji dictionary program called HouHou you can use that has an SRS system built into it. Last I checked it even has an SRS profile that matches what Wanikani uses
Regarding gift subscriptions, we can definitely do that! You just have to email us at hello@wanikani.com.
As for a raffle or community pool of money… for us as a company, that is a no. We can’t be involved with or do anything like that because that is lottery, and highly illegal to run a lottery in the US.
Thanks for looking into it. So maybe if the community had some way of organising it, then we could email you with user names and contributions. I’ll have to think about how that might play out…
Didn’t think I’d ever see a gacha for cards with kanji, words and hiragana, but 2026 delivered. In this app you can study what you randomly pulled from card packs.
Cards have, ermm, small blurbs of text that are maybe meant to be mnemonics(?) but make no sense. Every time it’s literally “see this kanji? It has N strokes and X radical. it’s so easy to remember!”.
At this point I was very curious how PvP mode works, but understandably that required registration. If anybody tried that please share.
On iOS (Apple) there’s a free app called “Kanji Teacher”, which employs SRS and can be tweaked in various ways. It even teaches writing (if you want), both stroke order and handwriting (recognisability). It includes some vocabulary, though I think it’s only compounds. It was written by a guy just for fun, beside his regular work. I was using it until I switched to WK.
WK is better for me because it 1) pushes me more and 2) provides those handy mnemonics, which though “silly” help with the hard readings.
I sympathise with your predicament, as at 17 I wouldn’t have been able to afford WK either. Probably you don’t have an iPhone either, but if you do, Kanji Teacher would be my recommendation.
. if i was rich, i would absolutely pay for lifetime right away (i did the math and it’ll be the most economical subscription at my current pace even without the christmas sale). i truly think that such a high-quality service is worth the high premium. i just wish it was more accessible to people like me… (i could probably deal with a “freemium” version in which half the page is taken up by ads LOL but i digress)
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. It usually says if the resource is free or not.
The internet has some really fantastic resources for learning and studying, especially nowadays. Feel free to try out various things and use whatever best helps you learn. You’ve got this!
