I’ve made it to level 2 after 7 or 8 days (no idea how you all do the graph!).
I find it really frustrating that the lessons don’t show all the meanings or common theme between them.
For example there was barely any details show that numbers are counted in chinese one way and japanese another.
Another example is kanji only showing one meaning under ‘person’ when it can mean ひと OR にん OR じん (じんこう for population) OR おとな when it’s attached to ‘big’ for ‘adult’. How are you all learning these when it has multiple meanings with seemingly no common theme?
Really struggling with vocabulary (i.e. incorrect 10 times in a row for one word/phrase) but i’m nailing meaning and radicals.
What you’re supposed to do is associate one or two “main” readings with each kanji, and then learn the other readings from vocabulary. Don’t try to memorize every reading that every kanji can have; it’s just an exercise in futility. Also, this article may be helpful: Onyomi vs. Kunyomi: What's the Difference?
The problem is these words and meanings and pronunciations don’t map very well to our brains as English speakers and so mass intake is not a very good idea. Given where it seems you are at level wise, I would simply say: trust the process, take the meaning and reading that WaniKani gives you and learn that, use whatever mnemonics you like (WaniKani gives you them, but you can and should come up with your own for words that aren’t sticking) and try spending extra time on the cards you get wrong. Read the example sentences, write them down, say them out loud, stare at them for a really long time, whatever you like, but force your brain to slow down and /consider/ the mistake.
As time goes on, you will find the patterns yourself. Additionally, you should (in my opinion) be doing some study outside of WaniKani and your exposure to the language outside of WK will also help develop that pattern recognition and bolster your memory.
(Also, I’m not entirely sure what graph you mean, but if you’re talking about the level up one, you can access it from Wkstats in one of the dropdown menus)
As a beginner, to see hiragana, katakana, kanji and now multiple sub versions of kanji, it definitely makes me reconsider whether it’s worth my time learning.
Well, the writing system is what it is The good news is that there aren’t that many kanji with lots of readings; they just tend to be concentrated in the common kanji WK starts you off with. Most kanji have one on-reading and one kun-reading, so there’s less of the odd special cases.
I do think you should reconsider why you’re learning. The further you go the more you realise it’s even more difficult than you thought. Wanikani streamlines the process and makes it much easier but it still needs a level of motivation and dedication to it. You’ll need a lot of time until you start getting a grasp of the language, and you’ll need a lot of patience and trust in the process.
How long are you spending on the lesson stage for each item? When you find you are consistently missing an item, are you going back to the lesson for that item and spending some time looking at and studying it?
The good news is that there aren’t that many kanji with lots of readings; they just tend to be concentrated in the common kanji WK starts you off with. Most kanji have one on-reading and one kun-reading, so there’s less of the odd special cases.
