Hello guys, this is my first post and I also just became a subscriber to begin my Kanji learning journey.
I came to Wanikani because a friend of mine recommended it to me and told me what a nice and helpful community it has.
I’m fairly new to the Kanji learning community, I just finished Genki 2 so I decided to begin Learning Kanji seriously now.
Anyways as I was browsing the net about Kanji I came up to this video that I found very well explained, It seems also that it was just released. I wonder what are you guys thoughts on it.
Nice to meet you guys, let’s have fun learning kanji together !
Thank you gojarappe I will do as you suggest. I’ve tried the first 2 levels of Wanikani, I like the fact that Is just convenient for me, I can access it through my phone and also like that it feels more complete cause it teaches you a lot.
However that video mentions a concept called “memory interference” or something like that, that says that maybe learning too much is counter productive ? Meh I don’t know for me I will just try and learn in a fun way.
I feel like the older, more experienced users can better answer your question and I can see them typing away.
What I can tell you from my own experience is that I have never used anything else that has made me remember so much in so little time. I’ve been living in Japan for a few years now and ever since I started WaniKani, I can finally start to decipher all the kanji around me.
Now, let’s sit back and wait for the replies to come in.
Most of these videos usually just discourage me a lot x) Thanks to all those “how to study perfectly videos” I always just look at whats better to study with and then don’t study at all…
I have a genki book right next to me that I would be halfway through if I just looked into it instead of looking how to study >_<
Wanikani works for me, it gave me a habit, Koichi forces me to do my reviews like a good boy and atleast somehow I’m learning japanese. Thus I’d recommand Wani in a heartbeat^^
Also holy moley there are a lot of other people tying atm o.o
It’s pretty funny that he bashes WK for being “out of context”, and goes on to recommend RTK. The time taken to complete WK at two years, compared to completing RTK in three months, is also not entirely representative, as RTK doesn’t teach you the actual words. You’d have to use RTK2 or something to actually do that.
Not to say RTK isn’t great or anything. A lot of people have had success with it and I’m sure it works well for some people. You’ll just have to try things if you want to find out what works for you.
Jumped to there, listened very briefly.
Seems his complaints are:
You have to pay for it.
They force mnemonics on you.
Its SRS
Which, come on.
Yeah, well made products usually cost money. Garbage is free, cause its garbage. Someone puts a lot of time an effort into creating a quality product, and they want money? The horror. Good things should be free damn it. Sure, mention the cost. Its something to make people aware of. But don’t ask like paying for things is somehow inherently evil.
No they don’t. You’re free to make up your own if you want, nobodies forcing you to use the defaults. They’re just giving you suggestions to help. Why is forcing someone to come up with one all on their own better than trying to offer a suggestion? Maybe the suggestion works, awesome. Maybe it doesn’t, no big deal, make your own. Win/win.
Yes, it is. SRS is proven to work. Saying method A is crap because you prefer method B, is a stupid argument anyways. You can critique things for what they are, even if you don’t personally like them. I hate country music, but can tell you objectively if an artist is good or bad by the standards of the genre. Why can’t people do this with other things?
This is not what he says. He means that it’s a closed source SRS where you have to keep paying to keep reviewing, which is a fair enough point, if you’re unwilling to pay.
Oh I didn’t know you can do your own DaisukeJigen, I’m studying the blue kanji called radicals on lesson one and I found them pretty easy to remember, I kinda liked them. Cross Toe, stick, gun, lid, these are just some I can remember now hehe. But thank you for sharing that tip I guess if I find one that is hard for me to remember I make my own.
Oh oh. I like this bit: “It only takes three months to get through Remembering the Kanji”
Yep. ‘get through’, not ‘learn’.
I also don’t get the hatred of vocab. Sure,
yeah, out of context. But would having no reinforcement of the kanji at all be better? Of course its good to go off and put your new knowledge to work. But learning vocab is a good thing, and learning vocab that will reinforce the kanji you’re learning… is bad?
Its like he wants a system that both gives you nothing, and loads you up with stuff, at the same time.
Also, when you’re just starting out, learning vocab out of context is kind of the only option you have. Unless, of course, you’re not afraid of being overwhelmed by text where you don’t know a single word. People sometimes act like starting to read right away is the simplest thing in the world. It’s not, even if you can already recognize 2000 kanji, since you can’t read them yet.
In general its useful to remember the radicals as they are proposed. This is not because they are perfectly made (a flat line isnt the “ground” for me), but because they will very often appear in future kanji and vocabulary.
The own mnemorics are more useful for the readings of the kanji or vocabulary. For example the vocabulary “neighbourhood” is pronounced as “fu-kin” (付近.).
Wanikani teaches you “kin” (近) in an earlier level and now wants you to learn fu (付) with the help of the word. However instead of learning about the “fools” (thus the “fu”) in your neighbourhood like Wanikani suggest, you might want to imagine a black guy shouting “welcome to my fucking neighbourhood” etc. Now that I think about it this might not be the perfect word to explain lol.
Basically I would learn the radicals as suggest, even if not always totally clear, but with the readings you have a lot of free room, as long as you are close to the original.
Also I’m just a lvl 10 pleb, if I’m wrong correct me pls ;_;
I saw it in my YT feed this morning, too. But since that thumbnail is pure clickbait, I already know I shouldn’t contribute another view to that video.
RTK was my first attempt to learn kanji. Nothing stuck. Wanikani became part of my daily routine, and I plan to go 0-60 at least twice.
I see Sirvine, thank you for your comment, I don’t know nothing about the other method so I can’t comment on it. But based on what I saw in the video it focuses on teach you writing and keywords in English, I may check the book later just to see it.
Yeah… I looked at google because I don’t know how to write kanji and just realised its the wrong kanji LOL.
On that note: How do you guys write the kanji in comments?? I googled the word then hoped the wikipedia link was the right kanji and then copy pasted it x)
Sure, mention the cost. Its something to make people aware of. But don’t ask like paying for things is somehow inherently evil.