So since I started WaniKani, I’ve been writing all the radicals, kanji, and vocab that I learn in a notebook. I’m only on Level 14 but the notebook is almost already full (so I suppose I’ll get a new one). Or so I thought, because now I’m wondering how effective the notebook thing is. I’m not sure if it improves my knowledge any much more so, but it’s definitely less convenient (and now very hard, as with the new radicals I’ll have to go back and rewrite the names of all the radicals. I like the new radicals but the challenge it poses to my notebook is daunting.)
What are everyone’s thoughts? Do you use a notebook with your WaniKani lessons or not? Do you think this is beneficial to my studies or no? Thanks!
It certainly helps, writing stuff down. When I was in middle school, our history teacher used to make us write… a lot. We often complained, and one day he told us that writing down a paragraph from a textbook is the same as reading it three times.
It made me think about it. Nowadays I wholeheartedly agree. If you focus on what you’re writing down, it certainly sticks better than just reading it and moving on.
Besides, think about it as an opportunity to learn the stroke order and how to actually write stuff. If you finish WaniKani without writing anything down, you will be half illiterate. The half that can’t write anything by hand.
Take a shot every time you read the words “write” or “writing”.
I usually write down kanji once after I first learn them, and again a few days later. I find that this lets me differentiate between similar kanji as I have to pay attention to which radicals make up the kanji to write it. This reinforces the mnemonics as well as gives me more time to think about each individual kanji.
Generally I just write on lined paper that I keep on my desk until I’ve learned each of the kanji on the paper. I keep my old kanji drills in a large binder which probably won’t fill up any time soon. It’s probably not super useful to save these, though.
I would actually suggest writing them only when reviewing them, as doing so between reviews tends to mess with the SRS.
More so, if you feel inclined to, write them once when learning them and from then on, only when reviewing them on KaniWani.
KaniWani gives you the English meaning, and if you cand hand write the vocab using only it’s English counterpart, you’re probably good to go.
However, if you only review your kanji and vocab on WaniKani, writing them might prove a little too easy since you’re going to see the kanji on every review.
I generally write the kanji during lessons and only rewrite the ones that I consistently get wrong or are very similar to other kanji. My thought process is that I might as well actually study the difficult kanji instead of brute forcing my way through (though that is my main strategy for much of the kanji).
I’m not writing things down as an activity in itself but I am increasingly trying to use the words as I am learning them. More often than not its through saying sentences out loud but I’ve started writing things down. This is as much about practicing the grammar I’m learning as about the kanji and vocab.
No notebook here… I practice writing the moment I see kanjis on the lessons (with a water pen, so I never run out of ink nor paper )…
Then time is better spended reading and overall using whatever I might have learnt more than practicing stuff without any other context (AKA “study mode” )
I bought a notebook and I wrote down a few that I found hard in level 10. Maybe I should do it again for level 11… But only for the ones I found hard to differentiate. I certainly helps
Wow I’ve come up with a solution !!
I’m gonna stop writing down every thing, because it’s very inconvenient, but I’m gonna start writing down vocab words that I want to be able to write (words I use often, like 練習, 感じ, etc.) This helps me use kanji vocab in real time. Also maybe take notes on words I’m having a hard time with - for example this level I’m having a hard time with 想 and 感 words. I don’t think that writing was doing me any help before, because I wrote all the kanji (not putting any favor on the harder ones) and before I had reviewed them.
i’m on level 07 right now and I’ve been keeping meticulous notebooks for everything. Sometimes I’ll take them with me on the subway and look them over for review.
Because I’m relatively OCD I like to keep everything in alphabetical order and by lesson. I have discovered though with the new site overhaul I’ve noticed that some vocabulary is now showing up in different levels. Some that were in L07 are now in L05, some from L03 are now in L07.
It’s getting me quite agitated…
perhaps.
This re-ordering of the vocabulary, which was intentional they’ve informed me, is making me throw out this routine now.
It was a good way to keep writing them by hand, which I am keen to keep doing, so I’ll have to figure out another routine for that
I don’t write anything down at all, honestly. In fact, even after a year of studying the language, I can’t write kanji. Well hardly any of them - exceedingly few. Same goes for hiragana and katakana - very low proficiency.
With the goal of reading news and communicating online in Japanese, and then taking a trip there next year, writing by hand has been a really low priority. Any ‘X’ amount of hours I could have dedicated towards it I think have been better spent, for my goals, in grammar / vocabulary / listening / etc.
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