Its a completely new language with a completely different grammar structure so i know its obviously going to be difficult to learn but after spending a good 20 minutes on the review of 12 kanji readings and meanings I’m not sure if this is natural or if I’m just inept at being able to remember these things?
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I don’t think it’s unusual.
But once you get enough experience with kanji, you’ll be able to guess the onyomi of kanji you’ve never even seen before, and that doesn’t really happen with kunyomi.
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It is natural and it won’t last forever!
You should take the acquisition slow during this period. You brain is growing so much just to be able to understand that the shapes are sounds are words.
My advice is keep going! But take you’re time. Learn other words outside of WaniKani. The more vocab you have the easier it gets and the more the kanji system makes sense.
How are you learning Japanese outside of WaniKani. Wani Kani teaches you vocab it doesn’t teach you Japanese.
It’s natural. It gets slightly easier later because more complicated kanji that share the same “visual” components with each other sometimes share the reading too so you can actually guess right at times even when you are not 100% sure what that kanji means. Kun’yomi on the other hand… 
i’ve just started with Japanese and I’ve learnt hiragana and katakana so now i assumed that I should start learning kanji due to the amount that i’ve seen it when attempting to read things and also what ive been told by the internet after reading articles. with the vocabulary what would you recommend to learn any vocabulary?
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For now I recommend to focus on Kanji and maybe Grammar in a few levels. Once you’re around level 10 and want to start reading you can use things like Jalup, KameSame, Anki Core decks, Torii. You can also try to read things and specifically learn (via Anki, e.g.) the words that you didn’t know in those texts.
But for now, you really shouldn’t worry about vocab yet.
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oh ok thank you for that information
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I added the links, if you want to check those out.
For me it helps to do the kanji mixed with vocab lessons. So I set lessons to random order. Also, it helps to limit the amount of items you learn in a day. You don’t have to do them all at once, even if you’re aiming to go full speed. Furthermore, you may find the experience here to be much more pleasant if you settle into, for example, a two week per level pace.
Yes it is.
I don’t agree with zEUs. I think there is a LOT you can/should learn without knowing kanji. In my experience knowing how to use a language is far more rewarding than memorizing some symbols.
For a total beginner, Duolingo is actually quite nice because it turns it into a game. I would not try to learn grammar from Duolingo, but it might help you feel more comfortable with the language, before you start really studying grammar in a few levels like zEUs said.
Cure Dolly can get you acquainted with sentence structure as well: Cure Dolly Link
What exactly is Jalup? I see it uses SRS, but what does it focus on? Is it still a kanji app, is it a grammar app, or is it everything?
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Sadly, I can’t really tell you much about it, as I haven’t regularly used it yet. Still though, I once found myself asking the same question and combed through their website to get a better idea. First off, they teach you both Kanji and Vocab (you can choose though) and they teach the new “items” integrated in context sentences. Of course they’re based on an SRS and have big Gamification on board to help you stick to it and have fun.
At this point I’d like to tag @Marifly, as I first heard of Jalup from her and I know that she has been using it for some time. I hope she will have the time to enlighten us some more.
It basically teaches everything at once through SRS. It starts from just one word and builds up, teaching you grammar, vocab and kanji along the way. The first pack of 1000 cards is Japanese-English, the rest of the packs are Japanese only. I have used it for a long time and I like it.
The first 100 cards are free, so I suggest that you download the app and test the first 100 cards of the beginner deck. That should give you a good idea if you want to continue working through the decks or not.
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