I’ve done it! This is probably gonna be unorganized and ramble on a bit but I have to confess my love for WaniKani.
Also, I haven’t really posted much in this community, (I’m a bit of an introvert) but know that I’ve read several threads on here. I want to thank the community that entertained me and pushed me forward, even if it went unnoticed.
But first, the cold hard statistics:
(That’s a long time for the next level. Also, this says 360 but my heatmap says 361 dunno why that is.)
These are both from https://www.wkstats.com/
And finally, the heatmap, honestly my favorite script (seriously, thank you @Kumirei, you’re awesome)
You can get the heatmap here!
How do I feel?
Amazing! Or terrible! I don’t really understand this feeling. I’m certainly feeling accomplished. It’s kind of like finishing a long book and realizing that you’re gonna miss the characters. I know there’s still work to be done (burning!), but I’m gonna miss all the new lessons and stories with the mnemonics. What I know is that I’m definitely gonna buy that lifetime subscription now.
What did WaniKani do for me? (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Crabgator)
Being a 22 year old in America, I felt kind of aimless, I had no idea what I had a passion for and no clue where I wanted to go.
WaniKani helped change that.
It gave me a constant goal to work towards and made me fall in love with Japanese. I’ve always had trouble focusing on stuff on account of my ADD (and my personality) , but WaniKani had me glued.
This wonderful program became so ingrained with me over the past 361 days that my irl friends and family started to identify me with Japanese. They began to learn my study schedule, and most importantly to me, they began to ask me questions about Japanese, strengthening my own knowledge and making me feel like I had a skill worth having.
Now my mother is supporting me in going to Japan to further my studies.
All the answers to the burning questions I had at level 1
I don’t think I can do this more justice than @jprspereira did in his guide
Thank you for this amazing guide, it was immensely helpful in my early days on WK. (My post here is honestly a little derivative of this one ) I beat you by 7 days though
What I can answer, however, is what my own year long experience was like.
Do I know Japanese?
No. Yes. I know some Japanese. I know enough to read a lot of the stuff I wanted to read a long time ago. I know enough to have passed the N3 months ago.
You can’t expect to learn Japanese solely from WaniKani. It’s just a piece of the puzzle. This program gives you the building blocks on which to build the rest of your knowledge on and just so happens to be the best program to do it with.
Personally, I’ve studied up on plenty of grammar books like:
- Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese Grammar
- Japanese the Manga Way (Loved this one)
- Genki
And several others. There are also a great number of apps to use alongside WK to help your learning effort. You gotta use every single resource available to you to learn Japanese.
But the most important thing to do is apply your knowledge. Use it in real situations. Read literature, follow Japanese twitter accounts (I’m a fan of some Japanese professional wrestlers), watch anime and Japanese YouTube videos (One of my personal favorites) I mentioned having friends question me on my knowledge. There’s really no way to describe the feeling of being able to read your first sentence/paragraph/book in Japanese.
Was it difficult for me?
Sometimes. During January I was on vacation in Europe, but I stubbornly decided not to hit vacation mode on here and study while I was travelling. That was probably the hardest part, but it worked out.
There’s no reason to rush. Take WK at your own speed. Use scripts to assist you, but be careful not to abuse them.
I used the WaniKani Lesson Ordering II (obsolete, does not work) script to do radicals/kanji first, but I always made sure to do my vocabulary soon after.
Closer
Anyways, I realize this is starting to sound a lot like a guide, and there’s already a fantastic guide out there, so I’ll stop now. Just wanted to talk a little bit about my experience. I hope if some new users happen upon my post here it might help them in some small way, like @jprspereira did for me.
Thanks to everyone in the community, I hope to interact with a lot of you more ! Keep burning those durtles, and never give up!