WK has a way of crowding out all other studies, so if you are not disciplined it can actually be a determinant. There is a certain amount of pressure to keep up with reviews to keep from drowning later. Plus it is kind of fun to traverse the levels - if there was a grammar resource as good as WK, we’d all have it very easy.
That said if you already have proficiency elsewhere the time to blend it in might be right for you. It will help with vocabulary retention tremendously - I think that since words are often made up of kanji compounds it can make memorizing myriads of homophones much easier. Kanji really is a must - the question is how much time to dedicate to it and when.
Depends entirely on what kind of studying you’ve done outside of Wanikani. You could know all the kanji in the world and still struggle to parse any native writing if you haven’t also been learning grammar. (Which is why balancing your learning is so important; this is all just trivia unless you can actually read.)
If you progress steadily with grammar up through Level 60 … it depends on where you started, but you should be able to read a variety of native texts without kanji being the primary hurdle, which opens up study drastically and is just fun on its own. You’ll actually be basically literate somewhere in the 30s, so, again, at any point in the second half of Wanikani, what you can read depends far more on your grammar and general vocabulary knowledge than it does kanji–the ones you know in most texts will drastically outnumber those you don’t, and you’ll start finding very little in the way of native reading that has so many unknown kanji it’s impenetrable.
The good thing about WaniKani is that it opens up all Japanese media to you. Even if you don’t study much grammar, as you go up the levels you’ll notice you’ll be able to read things and understand the meanings of a lot of words. Then you’ll be able to piece together meanings based on context. Then you’ll start to recognise grammar patterns and the big gloopy picture will slowly start to make sense. Without being able to read kanji, none of this is possible.
Of course, studying grammar and vocab as well will greatly speed up this process, but WaniKani alone will help a lot.
This helps a lot! I think I maybe misrepresented or underestimated my experience in this thread, but I’m realizing even from trying Bunpro as was suggested that I probably know a solid base of grammar from study + immersion, but in my experience the brick wall in reading was kanji and the brick wall in speaking / listening was vocabulary. I felt like I could never hold a conversation cause I had nothing to say and I could never learn more vocab because reading was so hard…
I will try and explore some more threads for reading recommendations once I’m a bit closer to 30ish as you suggest.
There are a lot of recommendations to learn (more) grammar here, and I agree 100%. And jump into reading native material as soon as you are able to.
For proficiency of WaniKani’s content in native material once level 60 is reached, that depends on the material being read. In the manga 「ご注文はうさぎですか？」 volume 1, for instance, there are 799 individual unique kanji. At level 60, you would recognize 722 of those (almost 97%). (Is 兎 really not covered in WaniKani? This surprises me.)
Along the way, once you hit level 17 you would know 50% of the volume’s kanji, at level 31 it’s 75%, and reaching level 45 teaches you 90% of the kanji (in this one manga’s first volume).
I don’t yet have a process in place to see how many WaniKani vocabulary are included in the volume, but you absolutely want a source of vocabulary outside of WaniKani to supplement your vocabulary learning.
Edit: Meant to say 799 unique kanji, not individual.
Fluent communication with aliens and also a lousy t-shirt…
Beyond that, seriously, finishing wk will make a huge difference in terms of proficiency, I think. Other people are saying to make sure to do stuff on the side, and they are right, but at the same time, the more wk you do, the more efficient the stuff on the side learning becomes. I mostly focused on wk (not solely, but mostly) for my first year and a half, and then started to focus more on other aspects afterwards. Having wk in my pocket was a super useful tool for interacting with those other aspects and was a time to get more used to figuring out what else I would need to learn and how to do it efficiently before actually diving in to do it.
TLDR: You will know a lot, and you will also know nothing. Learning a language takes a long time, but wk is a huge step forward.
There is never one answer on when it’s best to start grammar and immersion. People come in with different levels of Japanese experience, and different levels of available time to study.
My main advice would be; make sure to periodically re-evaulate and challenge your learning routine. See what can be added. See if you want to rebalance any learning focus.
When I just started WK, I couldn’t keep up with WK plus significant grammar efforts. My level was also too low to read the things I had access to at the time. But I made sure to try again every few weeks / months.
Over time, it was doable to add grammar without feeling like I would burn out. That made it possible to add reading some time after that.
Challenge and prod yourself on occasion. If you study every day, you get used to that routine, and then it is often possible to expand on that routine over time. For me, I tried and failed a few times at diversifying my learning routine in a sustainable way, but then I found a balance I can maintain right now.
Please keep in mind that @Leebo is not lvl 60 yet, so he is basing his opinion on a partial picture. Of course don’t discredit it completely, but be careful about trusting peoples opinions. Cheers!
Edit It seems that many people are very upset about this comment. It turns out that Leebo restarted his WK progression (he had an argument with someone, to prove a point restarted). So I was mistaken when I said that he is not lvl 60. Thank you all for my time.
Not trying to kiss up to Leebo with this, but it’s pretty amusing that you’ve basically in a roundabout way have tried to completely discount the opinion of likely one of the most knowledgeable people on the forum based on his current WK level number.
But hey what do I know, I’m just “level 6” (protip: I was higher than that and I reset a bit ago) and you’re “level 10” as if that has any meaning outside of the site.
I always thought that if you hit 60, then reset, the level disk should stay gold in color. Some of us lifetimers have mourned the loss of purple too! (I bought the first time that was offered)
Rather than resetting, I’ve elected to use the burn manager script to re-introduce old material. I think I’ve resurrected all un-burned Kanji up through level 47ish. It’s surprising what is quickly forgotten and what I still haven’t burned the first time! Struggles…
Everyone has a different ability based on their expereinces with the language. Where you arein terms of proficiency at the end of WK is based on what you do with what you learn while you are working through WK. I read, I have 3 years worth of Nihongo Journal from when I lived in Japan, write, I write the kanji I am working on in WK in a notebook and practice writing throughout the day while waiting for reviews, listen and watch, I listen to JPod101 while walking the dog and use iSakura to watch Japanese TV, and speak japanese, my wife is Japanese, everyday and I constantly find examples of Kanji that I have just learned via WK. This helps me retain what I have learned via WK. I also lived in Japane for 18 years so my experience is going to be different than someone who has never been to Japan or went for a month. The key is compare yourself to yourself and no one else. Where were you last year compared to where you are today. Do you feel like you are making progress? If the answer is yes then you are going in the right direction.
Uhm, he’s not right now, but he did reach 60 and then reset his level.