Does Writing Help?

WaniKani Tips & Tricks
#12

It feels like most answers could be paraphrased as “Writing is more studying so you’ll know them better”, which is kind of obvious.

Imo the question should be:
Do you want to be able to read x amount of Kanji, or do you want to be able to write y amount of Kanji?
I dare say x is always going to be bigger than y.
If you dont want to learn handwriting, why bother? Spend the extra time on exposure and you should be able to read them just fine.
It seems the “quantity over quality”-mindset in terms of reading is the very core of WaniKani.

#13

I guess what I’m thinking is that handwriting is going to help me store the Kanji in my memory. If I can keep up the same pace that I’m going at and not lose the quantity then I’m getting better quality learning. It’s another way for me to recall what the Kanji means (as I was writing it I’m thinking about what it means and I can recall back to the meaning and how it is said). Anyways that’s why I’m asking because I want other people’s opinions. Although I know my situation a little bit better and kind of like the idea adding writing to help learn it, it’s nice to see what other people think so I can adjust my options.

#14

I wanted to ask you, do you find that separating kanjis on three days is a benefit ? I have the script for it but I don’t really know if it’ll help me or not.

#15

Basically I’m doing 1/3 of the Kanji a day that way I level up every 7 days since it takes 3 and a half days to guru something - so after 7 days I guru all of my Kanji and the next level unlocks (since you don’t need to have vocab guru’d to advance to the next level). Vocab is also important so to stay caught up I’m doing 20 vocab lessons every single day. If there is no vocab then you’re caught up so you’re fine, but since we’re low level that is only going to be common for a short amount of time because reviews will start racking up.

#16

You’re obviously reinforcing your knowledge, but it’s also going to take you longer. If you could simply add the writing portion without adding a significant amount of time, pretty much everyone would be doing it :b

If it’s only about being able to read Kanji, spend your time actually reading them. Get to a higher level so you’re comfortable with beginner material and start reading. You’ll not only enforce your Kanji knowledge but are also practicing Japanese.

If you dont want to be able to handwrite, practicing writing is never going to be the most efficient way of study.

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#17

I see, do you think it’s inefficient to do every vocab reviews each day ? (also I’m currently doing WaniKani 2/3 times a day, has it an impact ?)

#18

I feel obliged to reinforce the answer of other people around here by adding my own experience:
I started learning japanese from the book, not from wanikani. So I was doing what book asked me to do- I was practicing the stroke order and writing of every new kanji I met in the book.
As a result even if I learned a particular kanji on wanikani, it feels foreign and incomprehensible if I am not familiar with its writing (or at least its parts, radicals)

#19

That’s very true. I’m just trying to get a better “picture” in my head of what the Kanji looks like, which is what writing will do. I feel like knowing how something is written gives me that mental picture of what something is, and reinforces how it is read and it’s meaning. But, I see where you are coming from and how actually reading it will benefit me more than writing it - I just don’t exactly know how I can implement that at the level I am at right now since I barely know any Kanji. Ideally, I see my time being spent every day as 1 hour on WaniKani (unless reviews rack up and I end up spending 2 hours), an hour on grammar, and then I have 1/2 hours or more, depending on the day, spent studying whatever. This would either be put towards writing the Kanji or reading… or I could actually do both. It all really depends on how things play out later on down the road when I get more reviews and lessons starting to rack up.

#20

No not at all, but I don’t know what pace you are trying to go out at. In my opinion from what I’ve learned from the community, doing vocab every day along with the other lessons is a good way to go. First, I don’t think cramming a ton of lessons down your throat is going to help with learning what something is, that is why going out at 5, 10, 15, 20 lessons a day would be a lot better because you’re only learning a set amount rather then going all out on the first day, and then having all this time off and wait for the reviews to come in… and then you get 20% of the review correct because you forgot most of what you learned. But once again, I don’t know what pace you are trying to go at so I can’t help you out too much there.

#21

So you’re saying you feel since you learned how to write the Kanji, now that you have switched to not writing it at all you feel like you can’t remember the Kanji as easily? Or it doesn’t feel like something you have learned since you can’t recall the stroke order/ how to write it?

#22

Are you learning vocab outside of WaniKani? You’ll have to suplement your vocab eventually.
You could always spend some time on Kana only vocab or vocab from manga/books like よつばと!

Theres also https://floflo.moe/ and Kitsun.io

#23

Yes, I’m using Kitsun right now and I’m following Genki – so I learn the vocab in Genki and then start the grammar.

#24

A particular kanji doesn’t feel familiar due to me being unable to recall the stroke order.

You know, to remember kanji, especially the problematic one, I need to have a story around it. Some history. I don’t know how to put it. You need to spend time with it, learn its origins, its meanings, use it several times, see it in some example sentences, compare it with synonyms. Knowing how to write it is one more step towards being friendly with it.

#25

Yeah I noticed the weaker the mnemonic the harder it is for me to remember, that’s why I was thinking about incorporating writing in that way I spend more time on it while using the mnemonic while writing so I can associate it better with that Kanji.

#26

I know this is more about handwriting but do not underestimate or forget about writing sentence by hand or otherwise. I make a point of writing social media posts in Japanese (Instagram posts about sake mainly) and this helps reinforce vocab, kanji and grammar. I think it’s a good habit to get into, it doesn’t really matter if anyone is reading them.

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#27

Yeah I’m planning on doing that as I get a little bit higher up. I’m gonna use the grammar I learn to help me write things. I also figured it would be beneficial to think in Japanese as well (picturing the Kanji/kana too) since I’m not surrounded by an environment that promotes using Japanese. I’ll also incorporate audio later on once I know more vocab too.

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#28

I think writing some kanji in the beginning of your studies will help build your understanding of the different shapes and patterns. But unless you really want to be able to write kanji by hand, I would suggest focusing on reading. That way you can learn many more kanji much faster, and you can still write them on your computer/smartphone.

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#29

I don’t really have any fixed pace, but I do want to learn pretty fast, or at least something optimized enough to be able to memorise everything. I’ll try your method when I subscribe to see if it fits my needs.

#30

A lot of people use this method because that way you can go through a lot faster. It makes sense to learn the Kanji and then learn vocab… rather than all the vocab at once then moving on. But, we all learn differently so it’s how it feels to you.

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#31

I massively support this, I’ve actually been handwriting all items from my first day of wanikani until now, and keep them in a book.

Now granted, i don’t pay any attention to stroke order as I don’t really intend on ever needing to properly handwrite Japanese and I’m pretty messy but it’s helped my accuracy massively (average over 95% correct reviews).

It makes lessons a little longer but i feel like it formalises wanikani into a study process, plus it’s cool to look at a physical version of what you’ve leant - i’ve almost filled a 128 page notebook at this point

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