WK is fantastic for learning kanji, which is super boring but you just have to do. For me it’s much easier to pay WK to get a structured experience with a decent (and user-extendable) web app.
And it’s so easy to be consistent with reviews surrounded by the passionate community.
Honestly, I would be paying for it if was more expensive. It’s just so useful for me.
Thanks for reminding me of Bunpro. I remember I signed up for it two weeks ago but didn’t like how cluttered the first explanation was, so I dropped it immediately. However, because I am in the same position as the OP, I have now taken up that website again to give it an actual chance.
Learning kanji boring? 
You are level 50 already, so can you tell me if you also initially thought it was boring or just got burned out along the way?
Compared to learning kana (or an alphabet) it just takes too much time. And you’ll be learning (and forgetting and relearning) kanji for a while even after lvl 60. I’m on course to reach lvl 60 by the end of summer, so can’t say I’m burned out.
There’re aspects of learning kanji I enjoy. Quite often it’s fun to learn a kanji on WK that I’ve seen already or find out how some vocab I know from before is written in kanji. And it’s also fun to encounter a newly learned kanji/vocab in the wild.
However, there’s a bunch of kanji that are rarely used but I still should know in case I bump into them when reading. At this point I just want to get done with WK and spend the freed up time on reading. I am so tired of following WK schedule of lessons and reviews every day…
Is there any other learning platforms for grammar like Japanesepod101?
I only used their free content on YouTube, so I don’t think it’s a great grammar resource.
When starting out I used LingoDeer app. It’s good to study and drill N5 grammar. Also Tae Kim’s guide for more detailed explanations. Many people recommend Cure Dolly’s site and videos. Maggie sensei’s website is good.
For those who already know the fundamental grammar I highly recommend Nihngo no Mori youtube channel (written in Japanese but I don’t have jp layout now).
And you can also google a new grammar point, e.g. “wake de ha nai grammar” (again, write the japanese expression in japanese). You’ll find a lot of sites, just read a few of them and pick your favourite.
How does WaniKani helps you in your study? Like if without WaniKani, will your 日本語 still be as fluent as you are today.
Since I live in Japan, I’m able to recognize kanji I’m studying as soon as I step out of my house. I’m also working fulltime so sometimes I can only studying wanikani everday since it is so convenient to use.
So it is convenient and useful. I highly recommend it to anyone.
I’ve been using WaniKani on and off for the past two year and a half. I actually did the first five levels, then stopped for six months, came back and reset back to level one again. I then got up to level ten and drifted off for seven months and have just recently come back, not resetting this time.
I’ve learnt Swedish and Italian on Duolingo and found the gamification aspect worked well. I find that WK offers the same kind of prescribed engagement, it reminds you what you have to do and has you do it regularly, which I’ve found just as good as Duolingo, if not better, for retention. Duolingo is fairly poor for Japanense, as many will tell you, so I use LingoDeer for additional vocab and grammar, which is excellent. I also use BunPro for grammar.
WaniKani provides a backbone to build all the other learning around. As people have pointed out, kanji learning is a long and tedious process, but is absolutely essential for reading. The other services do a great job about grammar and vocab, but they generally do a poor job explaining kanji meaning or reinforcing retention. That is the benefit I see in WK and why I’d pay for it even if it was more expensive. I’m waiting on the next lifetime subscription discount and I’m going to invest, because thanks to the extensible webapp, you can continue refreshing your memory like an anki deck even if you’ve burnt out all the kanji ^-^
Thank you for your opinions! I’ll look into BunPro since it has SRS, WaniKani is the first SRS system I ever experience! And it really helps.
Yes.
Already did =D Annual subscription
Nicely done!
I’ll admit that I’m a lot more consistent with WaniKani than with BunPro, mainly because I think “I’ll wait to learn those grammar bits till I know some more kanji” or “I’ll just wait and buy this notebook so I can write them down as I learn them”
I have at least bought the notebook now, so maybe I’ll get better, haha.
I’m also finding that for the most part LingoDeer will teach the grammar point (their study notes are fairly good) and then BunPro will reinforce it with the SRS, which is helpful. It also forces you to remember and use both the casual and polite forms, which is also good 
I just signed up for BunPro. I’ll give it a try during my free trial and see how it goes till then =D Hopefully I can manage two sides of SRS. Hahahahah!
Yeah, it can all seem a bit much sometimes if you take on too much. The general advice is not to do more BunPro lessons than you can manage so that the reviews don’t sneak up on you
I’m curious how long it took you to get to that point, at approximately how many hours per day.
I had seen a post back on a WaniKani Newbie thread saying that they best way to control the reviews length (if you follow a morning/noon/night review schedule) is to limit the number of new lessons (I think they suggested no more than 15 in a day). I’m curious to hear your thoughts on that, also, d-hermit-さん.
I’m doing lessons every day in the morning, then 4 hours later I have my first review session, and then another one 8 hours later.
I’ve been following this consistently from lvl 15. Then at lvl 29 I took a 3 months break from lessons and my reviews only about once a day. During the break I was preparing for JLPT N3 and didn’t have time to do WK full-force.
After JLPT I returned to the 3 times a day schedule and have been doing it for over 6 months now. I level up every 8 days on average.
WK probably takes 1 to 1.5 hours per day. I do 10-30 lessons per day. More if vocab, less if kanji.
For me it was not even question. I knew I wlll subscribe when I was moving to level 2. And today morning, 2 weeks and 4 days after start, I finally passed to lvl 4 and subscribed. I hope that I will keep the pace (fact that I paid is surely helping to avoid burning invested money).
I waited two weeks before deciding to subscribe. I used to learn Japanese with Drops and Duolingo just for fun and I was disappointed by the fact that I didn’t remember much. I’m now at level 15 and I don’t regret a bit. I remember much more words, get excited to be able to understand some instructions on Japanese products’ packaging, and also, I know Japanese and Chinese are not the same but a byproduct of learning kanji is to understand some Chinese. That is quite helpful sometimes when you go to a Chinese store.
I myself have just reached the end of my free levels, and made the commitment of paying for a one-year subscription! So far I’ve really enjoyed WaniKani Every week I notice that I’m recognizing more kanji and vocabulary in the wild, and it’s super motivating.
Something that helps me specifically with WaniKani is being able to write my own notes to go with words. Every time I mess up a word, I can adjust my mnemonic until I remember it perfectly. Plus, seeing my progress on wkstats.com awakens my inner completionist lol.
I’m personally testing my Japanese skills by watching and chatting with Japanese Twitch streamers/ Youtubers, and I’ve noticed that’s also a great way to get some learning in. I use Rikaikun on chat to understand what people are saying, and I try to follow along with the text in game when the player reads it. I guess it’s more entertainment than studying, but it’s definitely motivating to know your efforts allow you to connect to people across the world!