I would suggest using KaniWani at the same time. That helps with word recall when you’re in a conversation. Also, I would recommend floflo.moe, a site you can use to read at varying levels (not to mention, because it was made by a fellow Crabigator worshipper, you can input your API key from WK). There’s also NHK Easy, and my favourite, animelon, where you can watch anime with Japanese, English, and romaji subtitles (you can choose which).
Personally, I learned Japanese listening to Living Languages, though. It’s wonderful and indispensable. Seriously, it helped me so much.
Did you start using Kaniwani from the start? I didn’t, and I’m seriously regretting it now that I’m talking with language partners. I want to start but I’m overwhelmed with how much ground I have to cover…
I didn’t, either, and too regret it. But then, I regret not going ahead with WK when I made an account in 2013. As it is, though, I don’t have enough time to do both WK and KW, so I have to wait until I take the JLPT this July, when I’m no longer studying so much every day (ironically), to start back up on KW.
One option with the KW configuration is to only do reviews there for words that you’ve burned here on WK. That way you get a fairly slow, steady trickle of material over there and you’re not overwhelmed with 15 levels worth of words.
The standard setting is what @SleepyOne said, plus the current level. That is, KW takes the active items from your current level = those you have done the lessons for, plus the one you burned from previous levels. If you don’t have burned items yet (or few of them), it won’t be overwhelming at all.
I started KW maybe two weeks ago, and it’s actually nice.
Well, that’s what I am doing.
You can also manually unlock some level or item.
I feel it’s nice to use it for the current level, so that progress on both sides are mirrored. At the same time, getting burned items means I will eventually get everything, but slow and steady rather than all at once.
This one. I believe they make a problem book for each level.
It’s been a great help preparing for the test. It’s also structured in a way that recommends a certain amount of problems per day, then a review day, and encourages you to go back through each section after you’ve finished the book once (there are spots to record whether you got a question right the first time through, the second time through, and the third).
I actually originally learned Japanese by mashing my face head-first into light novels armed with only Excel documents and Rikai-chan on Firefox. It was a slow and tedious process, but, even now over half-way through kanji, I’ve learned the meanings of more kanji from my raw translating than I have from WK so far.
As you’re already taking steps to learning Japanese outside of that, you are a much more intelligent person than I was! However, don’t disregard attempting. While I don’t recommend trying to immediately read an entire novel series (unless you happen to have a huge amount of free time and great patience), but I do recommend buying at least one light novel and setting a goal for yourself.
Translating a single sentence a day can be highly beneficial not only to learning kanji and vocabulary, but also grammar. At first, you’ll definitely have to use electronic assistance (likely an e-dict and Google translate), but if you take the time to research why a sentence is the way it is, you’ll learn grammar more quickly and deeply than any SRS or blog post can teach you.
Due to its character-based nature, it is possible to be able to translate Japanese (visuals) without being able to read any of it aloud (sounds), but that ability should only be used as a basis to attempt early translating while you learning the meanings, readings, and grammar points properly through other resources.
As a fellow LN reader and hobbyist translator, I wish you smooth learning!
Hi, yes I do, I’m a premium member, and I would say it’s worth it. The part of Japanese I struggle with the most is listening/speaking just like you, and this is invaluable to helping that. I don’t know about the Premium-plus beyond that, personally I don’t see that as being worth it, but maybe it is for you.
This is a bit of a late response, but I’m interested in getting that mirrored progress on Kaniwani. I currently have my reviews to burned items only, but I also want to be working on my level 16 reviews and can’t unlock any 16 items with burned only enabled…
Do I just have to go down to apprentice and pick and choose what items to unlock?
Thank you for the suggestions! I’m just catching the KW thread and it address the issue I have with WK. floflo looks great as well and I’ve been using NHK easy lately. I’ve been studying for a while and I’m completely new to all these wonderful resources…glad I left the cave.
I have to wonder how animelon is free.It has a library selection similar to crunchyroll. The kana selection is super useful.
I passed N2, tried N1 but failed.
I joined the local Japanese study group and some of my friends are using mainingu. https://mainingu.com/login
It is a free Japanese learning tool which maybe suitable for you if you like japnes movie or drama. It works like anki flashcard but the content captures the phrase the character speaks.
Keep it up and don’t give up to learn. Setting a goal of achieving which Japanese level is the most important.
It will be good to see some cartoon, anime, drama with subtitles first. You may easily understand some phrases like greeting, frequent phrases used in daily life.