Hi!
My personal experience: I’ve been trying many different ways of learning vocab so far, I know it can be hard to find your way among so many resources!
Anki doesn’t really work for me because of the absolutely non-user-friendly interface and how you need to basically “learn Anki to learn Japanese”. I tried it twice but couldn’t really get a hang of it. It is free but there are other free options out there too!
Torii is really nice, but for some reason I didn’t adapt very well to it. I think it’s because it’s more of an “app” than a website (weird reasoning, I know) and I had a hard time using it on my phone. But it’s free and has core 10k deck which you can set up (sync) with WK. So it’s definitely a good option.
I tried Kitsun recently and although it is indeed very nice and user-friendly, it is expensive for something you can basically do for free somewhere else (that’s just my opinion, no hard feelings over Kitsun).
Now I’m using KameSame which is the same website lots of people here (I suppose) use for reinforcing WK vocabulary. Thing is, it also provides SRS for 10k core or by JLPT level (which is what I’m using). It is free, trains recognition (JP–>EN) and production (EN–>JP), and provides easy access to Jisho and other websites for every single entry. You train how to produce kanji on your keyboard instead of only typing in kana (which is fine too), and it is very lenient when it comes to synonyms (and you can add your own as well). You can add single words to your queue with just a click, and it also has a built-in feature to input text and select the vocabulary within it that you want to learn (but I haven’t used this yet).
I’m still experimenting with it though (just recently started) but… so far so good?
(Also, it is a relief to be using only two SRS in total…)
In the end it’s really about what works better for you. If you feel divided between options you can always give them a try before making the “final decision”. I know I still have not…
I don’t know why but in this kind of thread I feel like nobody ever recommend Houhou, which is my preferred SRS system, by a long shot. Having a dictionary with 1-click create card and embedded SRS system is just perfect (at least for me).
I can see how no online/smartphone support can be a problem depending on how you study though. On the other hand, it’s free ! (and offline can be a plus in some situations)
This and the UI not being modern/pretty are deal breakers for me. I’m extremely shallow when it comes to software UI/UX and most of my studying is done on my phone and tablet.
Kitsun has a community feedback loop where it’s integrated within the card function and this makes a world of difference in deck quality, particularly the 10k deck where thousands of edits have helped shape it. The ‘known’ word system allows a user to jump from deck to deck (anki decks within Kitsun too) without having to manually filter thousands of cards, you can just go straight to new content as a filter. It’s pretty easy to filter with WK vocab too but the API will soon make it automatic. The known system also works within the Reader tool as well. If you are already an Anki user, you can just bring your list, import it, mark it known and have the same experience.
Typing out the synonym builds is really a waste of time, end up being a full time secretary to curate your own learning material. Consider words that have ALOT of definitions, the main reason why I won’t use WK for new content anymore, there are tons missing nuances that I run into issues in the wild plus auto cards contain patterns of speech (and I want to integrate En>JP for all content learning). Its not a knock on WK, keeping it simple helps learn the kanji but it’s not my preference for vocab anymore. Here are Chrome and Firefox extensions for anyone interest that vocab mine in the wild with a native extension on the horizon, I believe will behave more like the reader tool w/ some extra features. I think this is easier w/ less steps than importing a list periodically, my mined vocab get circulated into lessons immediately. Sub2Kitsun works very simply too, very easy to take a show and sentence mine you favorite scenes.
I love this
Efficient summary of the main functional reasons why Kitsun is more than just an Anki replacement.
Yeah, cmpletely agree with this. Having said that though, I think WK vocab is good specifically because it’s only there to enforce Kanji readings. I wouldn’t dream of using it for pure vocab acquisition.
I used to complain about this but it’s sort of necessary and wouldn’t change it now, for input meanings on WK, I’m more than likely to attach to a single definition anyways (I suspect most of us do the same?). If I’m digging my brain to burn an item, my memory definition may get altered from exposure or my warped memory and would get annoyed that a particular synonym was not included but that’s ok. You could spend an entire level just on the nuances of 掛ける which is sort a distraction for a kanji learning program
The app is only days old but I can say that I’ve transitioned to using it 100% for ios. There were 3 major updates on bug fixes so now I say the experience to be excellent thus far. I still have the PWA as a backup, which I still think is very serviceable and gives an app like experience, but the beta app modified font sizes favorably and the aesthetic looks very nice (plus reporting errors only improves the app for everyone).
(that’s just my opinion, no hard feelings over Kitsun).
