I am currently on Level two but have a strange mix of Japanese skills prior to starting Wani Kani so I think (?) I am progressing pretty quickly. I have some questions about how the program progresses and what you are doing to generalize the information and work it into the rest of your Japanese knowledge.
I took Japanese in college years ago and forgot just about very basic vocabulary and kana. I am currently working through Genki 1 with a tutor in conjunction with this program.
Do the higher levels have reading material or do you use Sartori reader or another program? Right now, I am digging the learning/teaching style of WaniKani but it also feels really random since the kanji and vocab are presented in an order that relates to the radicals, rather than frequency of use.
I understand why it’s that way but I am trying to wrap my mind around how it all links up in the end. Thanks!!
WaniKani teaches kanji based on increasingly complexity, so you’ll see “simpler” looking kanji in the beginning. Then you learn vocab words utilizing the kanji to help reinforce kanji readings and learn some (well, thousands of) words in the process of learning how to read kanji
As far as reading material goes, the first… 10 levels I believe? have three sentences for reading practice for the vocab lessons and then one sentence for them after those levels all the way to 60. This is to help show the vocab in context
So you would definitely need to supplement WK with both grammar (which you’re doing) and other materials for reading practice (and listening and speaking practice later on once you start getting more comfortable!)
I used Satori Reader, I thought it was a nice touch to be able to sync your WK API – once you learn more kanji and are more comfortable with reading, I also recommend consuming native materials (such as easy news articles [NHK easy news], manga, light novels, video games, etc, anything that interests you)
As long as you keep in mind that WK’s primary purpose is to teach you to be literate (i.e. be able to read kanji), and teaches vocab w/ some example sentences as a secondary benefit, you’ll be able to recognize the other areas of your Japanese learning that you’ll need to focus on and supplement your time on WK with ^^
WaniKani is really only for Kanji, and about 8000 vocab words that use those Kanji. You will want to supplement your learning with other resources to get other skills (like reading, speaking, listening, grammar).
I personally am working through a grammar book along side WK, and use readers from other resources too. If you don’t, you’ll end up really good at Kanji, and nothing else!
Tangoristo and Manabi are great reader apps with real news sources to practice reading comprehension. They come with built-in dictionaries and furigana
I second this. I use TangoRisto and you can export the whole text for printing so you can notate on it, and the dictionary breaks down each word/phrase. Very useful.
