Even "oldies" can do Wanikani!

Hello WaniKani family,
My 73 year old brain has finally achieved 2000 burned items!
Here’s some advice for beginners which has worked for me. :slight_smile: When you get a reading or meaning wrong, don’t just skip to the next item, read the story again and if that particular story isn’t helpful, write your own.
I like the challenge of Wanikani - hopefully it’s keeping my brain active! :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

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You are wonderful! I hope I am still challenging my brain when I am 70. :slightly_smiling_face: Also, I totally agree with your advice. Skipping forward is just pushing off today’s work to tomorrow. :turtle:

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おめでとうございます!
(Youth is allegedly wasted on the young!)

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You are so right, joanie45! I’m 68 and doing this for my brain, too. I’m having loads of fun and learning new things. I get so excited when I see a kanji on TV, YouTube, or in a book, and can read it. It;s NEVER too old to learn. Are you in any of the WK book clubs?

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No age limit on learning! Burn down those Kanji! :durtle_durverted_lvl2:

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Congratulations! They say it’s important to keep your brain active and learning, so keep going. I hope I’m still learning at 73!

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Hi there,
Can you tell me about WK book clubs?

joanie45,

We beginners are reading a Japanese book now. Go here:

にゃんにゃん Reading Group (purrfect for beginners!). There’s also clubs on WK for intermediate learners as well. I’m just starting my first Japanese book now.

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48 year old dude here. This is my third time trying Wanikani and it’s going great so far.

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Also 48. This past year has been my 3rd attempt to learn Japanese and it is going much better than the first two, when I tried to do it really fast. I am very grateful for the online tools and community that are available to help now. That, and for the time to slow down and do it right.

I want to echo what @joanie45 said in the original post: When I get something wrong, there is a temptation to “put it behind me” but I have learned that I learn better by working on the unfamiliar or (worse) familiar-and-still-troublesome parts.

Making up my own stories helps a lot, too. I can roll in my different life experiences and make the scenario easier for my wetware to remember.

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Thanks for the encouragement!

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Thanks Chibi! I’m aiming to go all the way to level 60 - if I have enough time left on planet earth!

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Definitely no age limit on learning! :slight_smile:

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This is a great inspiration for everyone, not just “old” people! :+1:

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Inspiring. I’m 31 and wasted a lot of time. For the past few years I’ve been getting “back on track” and tend to have confidence problems. I also feel like I’m “too late”. I’m just now getting back to Wanikani (and Japanese grammar) after finishing college and I’m also over 2.5 years into taking piano lessons and practicing every day (ok. I’ve missed like 15 days so far).

Here’s to saying “bah!” to younguns and their brain plasticity. We can do it, too! :stuck_out_tongue:

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I’m 54 and loving WaniKani!

Another thing that’s helped me with grammar in WK is not only stoping to review the mnemonic, but also looking up the kanji in a dictionary to find other meanings that WK doesn’t include (for focus and simplicity). Sometimes one of the alternate meanings make way more sense when used in a particular vocabulary context, so I’ll add the synonym and write a new mnemonic.

I’m 12 :woman_shrugging:t4:
Trying not to waste my life I guess

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