みなさんこんにちは！
Hi, I need some advice. I’m learning japanese for school and I’m following the tofugu guide. I have done wk for a bit than a month now, and I’ve completed 3 levels. Now I want to continue, but because I’m a broke high school student and only need to fill in a specific total of hours for school, I want to do wk for one more month. After that, I’m going to start with grammar (and of course I’ll keep updating my vocab list and learning vocab).
My question is, is it doable/possible to ‘speedrun’ 7 levels of wanikani in one month? Has anyone tried doing this? And also, it possible to continue vocab reviews after your payment stopped? If that’s possible, then I could just speedrun the kanji and radicals and take care of the vocab later.
Only the first 2 (?) levels can be done fast. After that it’s 7 days/ level until you reach the 40s. There you’ll find some fast levels, where max speed is 3 days 10 hours. Others are still normal and thus 7 days. In reality all levels are fast levels.
Okay, thank you! I will try to just do as many levels as possible, and then see if my vocab and kanji knowledge is good enough. Can I still review vocab after my paid month is over?
Hi, just to be clear, I really am motivated lol. I love learning languages, and I’ve always liked Japanese culture. I want to go to Japan when I’m older and maybe even live there for a while.
The possibilty of making these hours count for extra credit at school was just a nice reason to make it feel like I’m actually doing something efficient for school instead of just learning it for myself, if that makes sense. My parents are already paying for one month of WK, and since there’s no high priority for me to learn japanese or anything, I don’t want to ask them to pay for a second month.
I will definetly consider paying for myself tho. If I won’t, I can always keep a vocab list and update it with new kanji and word I learn. My main goal for now is to understand enough vocab to start grammar.
Okay, thanks a lot, I’ll keep that in mind.
I don’t really want to bother the wanikani team with this, I’ll be fine. They can’t make exceptions or anything, and it’s not like I am completely broke.
Btw, everytime I see someone at level 60 I’m really amazed. Like damn you sure know a lot of kanji, and here I am with my 3 levels knowledge.
If you’ve only got a month you’d learn more with Heisig’s RTK. This only teaches you the meaning of the kanji, but you could probably get through a third of that in 30 days if you set goals and meet them.
Anyone more experienced feel free to correct me if this is bad advice
The workload also gets tougher as you go. I flew through the first 4-5 levels, and getting to 9 has already been more challenging and slow. Which I’m okay with! For the folks that race through at breakneck speed, I do wonder if they are retaining everything (perhaps they are studying on the side or are just naturally talented at languages).
Another solution to your problem could be using Anki with a Wanikani deck instead of Wanikani itself. This would be free and would allow you to work at your own pace.
If you’re not using Anki, you probably should! it’s great and allows a lot of customization. There are many decks you can choose from, and you can create your own and populate it with kanji/vocabulary you meet and want to memorize.
The first 4 levels were kinda easy, and then… From level 5 onwards everything just seemed weirdly so much harder… Stuff wouldn’t get into my head… I guess I hit a wall =P
Although it’s embarrassing to think of it as hitting a wall, as normally others hit one a bit later in the game (levels 20-30), so it’s kind of pathetic I started hitting them at level 5
To the OP: go as comfortably fast as you can go, but obviously also being careful that you’re actually learning the kanji and vocabulary here, otherwise it would be a waste =P
After your month finishes (or even now!) check this fantastic thread:
Literally all the resources you could ask/dream/fantasise about. Many are free to boot!
I’m personally using some other sites from that list, because WaniKani will never be the one and only, forever (unfortunately )
I hope I will see you back here soon in the future though, when you can have a subscription again =D
I do recommend investing the money in this site if you can, it’s the best I’ve ever found to learn kanji effectively and it’s worth every penny (this coming from someone that swears off subscriptions and is extremely stingy with money)
As someone who’s planning on racing through. It should be noted that my only goal is reaching fluency as quickly as possible, and then using that base to become more and more proficient in every area over time using Japanese-only methods. To that end I’m using WaniKani for one, and only one reason: learn Kanji recognition and familiarity. I won’t sweat the long-term retention of additional readings or vocabulary from WaniKani, because all the important information will be reinforced through actually learning and using the language. Though I must say, learning to write the Kanji and using KameSame for recognition is helping a lot with retention.
You should try Anki or memrise.
7 levels of wk is about 200~250 kanji of the most common used kanjis
You can just find them anywhere on free resources and learn.
Anki with the select yes/no answer input can actually help you do review quite fast. I would say much faster than wk (where you have to type your answer as input). Of course you will forget faster but it won’t be matter if you need to cram (and you can review later which offsets the downside imo).
I personally had used Anki to cram grammar (same as vocabs) for about hundreds of items in two weeks (for JLPT lol) and still remember most of them for the test. When it comes to language learning you don’t use them you just forget. So for your situation (since you won’t be using wk after your 1 month anyway. Maybe switch to other free resources in the beginning is one good way)
Check out KameSame. You can go through the exact same content as WaniKani if you want, albeit without the extra teaching information and userscript support. If you really need a more frugal substitute, then this is it. I almost decided to use KameSame without WaniKani myself, just to circumvent the hard speed limit, but ultimately I feel that the tools and information provided by WaniKani are more than worth it.
WaniKani only builds recognition, so even with a WaniKani subscription you should still use KameSame since you can import your WaniKani items as you learn them and practice recollection as well.
If that’s the case, I’d like to recommend the Let’s Learn Basic Japanese
It’s an older tv series, but doesn’t really require prior knowledge and starts you off with both grammar and vocab. It’s all free on YouTube, but has a textbook you can buy off of Amazon or other places that sell used books. Even though it’s dated, all the situations are relevant to life in Japan still (or at least my experience currently living in the countryside. They speak at a natural, native speed, but also quite clearly. A bit later in the series, they go through the syllabary to help your pronunciation. Additionally, the humor has aged well.
Japanese from Zero is another useful series, but it’s more classroom style and less situation based. Additionally, George’s (the teacher) tangents and humor can be off-putting for some.
The Youtube series is free, but there are textbooks and additional resources that can be bought from George’s website.
Thank you all for the replies, you’re so helpful! I checked out KameSame and Anki and they seem great! I will definitely be using them. Especially KameSame looks like a good substitution for WK when my month is finished. Maybe I will be using Anki alongside it. As for Reisig’ s RTK, I downloaded a pdf, and I think it’s a useful way to remember kanji. Also, it teaches you different kanji than WK in the beginning, so I think it will be a nice resource to learn new kanji from that I can review myself (using Anki?)
I will have a look at the
Japanese Basic seems cool, a good resource for learning grammar and conversation. Btw, for grammar I found the yt channel cure dolly, does any of you know if she is any good? I’ve watched one video and it seemed alright (despite her creepiness). Don’t like how she talks about how her method is better all the time, but her approach does seem like a good one.
They might be able to help.
)