Hello to everyone here- I’ve been a frequent lurker, often like-r, sometimes commenter, and now first-time poster to these lovely forums. Just about every time I have had a question or curiosity about this site there’s an articulate, informative, and fun discussion already covering what’s on my mind. This time, though, I poked around and couldn’t really find anything relating to the topic- so figured I’d throw my hat in.
This is really just hypothetical, but is there a chance WaniKani will ever do a content addition large enough to warrant expanding beyond the 60-level structure? For the sake of consistency, I’ll just say a new layer bringing us to 70. Something beyond reality, if we can even imagine such…
I’ve wondered about this on-and-off since I started using the site, but lately the idea has been shifted to the forefront for a handful of reasons and it’s had me pondering.
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Firstly, WK Stats has a button that toggles “Not On WK” Kanji- and it’s a fair little chunk of N1-level Kanji all not available on the site. On the charts tab, it states that (by level 60) WK covers 79% of N1 Kanji standards. I know that there aren’t really “true” resources for exact JLPT standards, but if the estimate is still 21% (of 1000+), I think it’s a fair assumption that there’s a decently sized gap here.
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Secondly, just for fun or as a resource while reading, I’ve been browsing around on Jisho- and I’ve increasingly noticed words without the little “WaniKani level X” tag. I’m not implying every word ever needs to be taught on here, but when many still have the respective JLPT level or “common word” tag it makes me believe they’d be worth exploring- especially since many are encountered during immersive learning. I also recently started using Bunpro and some of the newly introduced vocab (and their respective Kanji) aren’t listed on WK when I do a site search to see when/if I would encounter them here.
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Third, at the time of me posting this there has been an ongoing- albeit fairly small- content update, sprinkling in a few new items. As funny as it is adding words from levels way earlier than I am currently at, the curious part of this has been the precedent that new content is curated for the site (this is the first time I can recall this since joining the platform). I knew definitions, acceptable answers, mnemonics, and level placements get edited fairly often, but this is new for me.
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Finally (and the true catalyst for this post) was this paragraph I received on my level-up email when reaching 25.
I wondered if something like 10 additional levels would ever be explored due to the scope of the undertaking- but that exact scenario has happened in the past. Was that a one time event?
Just off the top of my head, I can understand why this wouldn’t happen. Obviously 10 levels of content is a huge undertaking on behalf of the WK team- they can’t just snap their fingers and snugly put in hundreds of new items, not to mention implementation, maintenance, and all that nonsense. It could also be a bit of a slight to the countless people who’ve worked towards that level 60 milestone, just to have the goal moved back again- or maybe they restarted upon reaching the top and now they have to sift through a bunch of repetition to reach the new. And I do think it’s already a little flimsy and idealistic, but 10 levels of content sure makes it harder to sell the “WK in a year” dream to new users, and certainly makes the monumental task seem even more difficult to newbies. But would that be enough to rule it out?
I want to clarify that me posting this is by no means a criticism of WK or expressive that it is lacking in any way- but the reality is just the scope of this language goes even beyond the wealth of content available here. All of us are here to learn ! And there is a lot to be learned !!
Anecdotally, every other resource I have used for supplemental Kanji learning hasn’t even been comparable to WK. Browsing Amazon or bookstores for Kanji material makes it evident most resources tap out around the ~400 mark if you’re lucky. Just out of curiosity- I’m looking at a 30 dollar set of Kanji flashcards that only has 126 items and no attached vocabulary as an example. Even something like Anki I find to have much clumsier UI, inconsistent content since it’s all fan-generated, no typing practice, less mnemonics and examples, and a general lack of focus comparatively- and that’s one of the most celebrated learning resources for this.
All of that to say I want to be able to lock into WK as much as possible and bask in the consistency and quality standards here. I love and continually do check out other resources as (like any art form) the more places you learn from, you’ll only get more practice and/or new perspectives to draw from. However, the less I have to dig around to fill in gaps is monumentally appreciated.
N1 JLPT is already a goal-beyond-a-goal to most people, but I think it sets a pretty fair precedent of what you’ll come across in extensive immersion with the language. Even if the content is on the tail end of encounter likelihood, it still is interesting and valuable- and “less likely” certainly doesn’t mean never.
If the average WK level has (estimate) 35 new Kanji, adding 10 levels worth to the current 2080 would just about perfectly fill in that previously mentioned N1 gap and bring us just shy of 2500 (which is a stat on Jisho and a really cool milestone to round to). Even if the new Kanji don’t lend themselves to a particularly large amount of new vocabulary, this is a good opportunity to go back and add in some more missing vocab using familiar past Kanji as I mentioned before.
And hey, WK is a business- so from that perspective all that new content might get people to jump on a lifetime sub or a few extra months, no? Plus it’ll push the total content over the 10K milestone (sitting at about 9k currently, I believe) and that’s a nice, rounded, marketable number, eh?
Anyways, that’s about all I have to say on the topic at the moment but I would love to hear more and continue discussion. If this idea has already been exhausted then please call me out on it and I apologize for being annoying- but if not I would love to hear any and all perspectives on any of this. Good idea? Bad idea? Plausible? Not a chance? For as much as I like to ramble, I’m sure I overlooked plenty.
Thanks for reading if you did, and happy learning to us all. 頑張って !
*(quick edit after posting) it seems that there are some threads exploring this topic that I missed until my post curated some- guess I’m not great at searching around haha- but they seem to be from 2018-2020ish. Years have passed, maybe worth exploring again? Still, if redundant I (or a mod) are welcome to remove this post.