Discovering my love for language through WK

WaniKani
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Edit: I’ll be putting my newest post as the solution! so you can see the newest update :slight_smile:

Hey! so I’m not really sure how to start this I’ve been using WK for a few weeks now, and I’ve downloaded a bunch of cool userscripts to improve my experience (thanks @Kumirei :smiley: ).

Anyway I figured I would create my own post on the forums to just write about my experiences using WK and things I’m enjoying, struggling with, or just general observations. I’m only level two currently so I have a long way to go, but I’m trying my best to stay motivated.

I also figured this might be a good way to connect with some new people.

I’ll start with something I found interesting, at first It was a bit overwhelming, I learned Hiragana and Katakana through Tofugu before moving onto WK. I was sure I would struggle but the more I’ve learned the more “quirky” and enjoyable I’ve found the language to be.

For example how three is written 三 and pronounced さん but if you have 三つ it’s pronounced みっつ. I would have assumed that it would be “san” again sort of like 七 with 七つ. I was like “Woah that’s pretty weird!” but it got me thinking. For non-native English speakers the English language must be pretty weird too, such as how “time” and “tim” have the same first three characters but the “ti” sound is so different. And don’t even get me started on time & thyme.

Then there is also たい / だい / おおきい being the on’yomi and kun’yomi versions of “big/large” it’s definitely a lot to take in but the mnemonics help a lot.

Before I started trying to learn Japanese I never really thought about how bizarre the English language is, but now I realise all languages are fun and weird in their own way.

What are some things that you guys find quirky or interesting about Japanese?

Edit: Quick update, just completed my reviews and got a ton of new things to guru level and unlocked 28 new lessons, I’m so pumped!

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You’re welcome :slight_smile:

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I think for me I’ve doe more grammar than vocab up until this point and the idea of only needing a noun to make a sentence is really strange and cool along with the idea of free sentence order. Ofc most sentence structures will sound weird or unnatural but the fact that you ca in theory organize a sentence in so many ways and have it be not only understood but technically correct is really cool to me. Ofc im sure I don’t fully undestand enough grammar to really know what I’m talking about but its still fun

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Quirky? They don’t really conjugate their verbs, but they have 3 ways of making ‘desu’ negative, depending on how polite it needs to be.

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I’ve not even started grammar yet but I have heard it’s hard, hopefully I can struggle through though and one day understand it all :sweat_smile: .

I am worried about that in particular “But the fact that you ca in theory organize a sentence in so many ways and have it be not only understood but technically correct” because I’m sure I’ll find a way to make it all wrong! hahah :slight_smile:

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Yes! Quirky :grin: !

I also love how 大人 is a combo of “big” and “person” and means adult to me for some reason it makes me unbelievably happy and I get the dumbest smile on my face lmao!

“They don’t really conjugate their verbs, but they have 3 ways of making ‘desu’ negative, depending on how polite it needs to be.” I haven’t learned about desu yet but it sounds interesting, hopefully I will get there soon.

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Thank you, Jenny

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What do you mean by this?

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I wouldn’t say that grammar itself is hard, but that the japanese sentence structure is so different from most european language that it can take quite a while to get used to it.

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でわありません
じゃありません
じゃないです

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Ah, okay. There’s even more levels of politeness beyond that for doing a negative, but yeah, politeness is an interesting part of the language.

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Yeah, it’s really interesting, like mother and father. Although we do say mom and dad too.

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I think you mean verb?

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i mean, even with numbers: one, but first; two, but second; three, but third… ^^

it makes me happy when someone so clearly enjoys learning stuff! please stick with it, even when it gets hard, because there is so much more to discover! :smiley:

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This is all so great, this post just reminds me of how I started a little while back. I also learned Kana from Tofugu then started using Wani Kani. All of your realizations are what I felt back then too, I remember coming across 大人 and thinking, “Big Person means Adult? Of course, it does.” I love how literal the Japanese language is and sometimes the literalness is just so funny. Just wait until you get to 火山, Fire Mountain, means volcano, so simple but can be really funny if you look at it objectively.

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Yeah seeing that big + person 大人 make adult is definitely a good feeling, I didn’t know 火山 fire mountain is volcano, makes sense! I’ll look forward to having more words like that then :smiley: !

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yeah it’s level 3 I think?
There are other things, when you think about it, that make so much sense. 女の子means girl, which makes sense, because the first kanji is ‘woman’ and the last is ‘child’. There are a ot of ways to say girl, but still. that is what is nice about the kanji, I think, you can sort of guess the meaning, or when you see what it means, it sort of makes sense. And I’m only at level 4! Who knows what more I’ll earn!

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Spoiler alert: じゃ is really just a contraction of では.

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Not really a surprise, but it still has a different level of politeness?

I really should get started on chapter Three of Genki, but I’m so afraid!

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では is more for written, じゃ for spoken language.

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