Completely understandable. In a world where people are rushing to push out learning material haphazardly, riddled with mistakes that may or may not get fixed “in post”, taking extra time and care is appreciated. <3 There’s a lot of proofreading, vetting, revising, and it takes even a decent-sized team considerable amounts of time to publish/release anything of substantive value. I’ve reviewed Marumori and it’s certainly one of the better beginner resources I’ve seen.
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It gives the learner the impression kanji are less difficult than they really are, because the learning curve fluctuates less. Otherwise no, because it interferes with every other resource and native content.
Without Wanikani I probably would never be able to read Japanese. I’ve tried many other resources before it and nothing worked until Wanikani. The progression is pretty good and even though I’m getting a lot of very complex Kanji right now, learning them is easy because I know their building blocks and learned them before.
I don’t think it’s a perfect tool. The mnemonics become useless at some point, and the radicals and how they’re taught makes things a bit more difficult sometimes. Having the moon Radical always be taught as moon makes learning body parts extremely difficult for no reason at all. Basically any kanji that has a moon in its left side is a body part, because the moon radical is also a flesh radical. The leader radical is also very confusing because it’s just a person radical. Shellfish radical is a money radical (although not officially i think. Shellfish was just used in the past as currency so everything that has it on the left is a kanji related to money). Knowing these facts makes the process much easier, but it’s never taught in Wanikani for some reason.
That said,again, without Wanikani I would be at 0 and would’ve never gotten this far. So I would still definitely recommend Wanikani. I just don’t think you should use it as the only tool.
I highly recommend doing Anki beside it, and maybe the Tango decks, because Anki is still a necessary tool. And of course you need a grammar resource. Which I would personally not recommend Bunpro for. Just read Tae Kim’s guide and watch Cure Dolly, and that should be enough.
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Also the yearly sale of Wanikani should happen in 2.5 months, so maybe wait if you decide to get a lifetime until December.
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My your family doesn’t value learning a language? You are literally saving money doing this instead of doing college courses. You found resources that work so you should stick to them. This is an excellent hobby to invest in as it’s also good for your brain health too. If they don’t see the value or importance of brain health then that’s on them.
Besides Bunpro there is also MaruMori.io too so you could totally check that out and see if you like Bunpro or MaruMori.io more.
I plan on putting more money into it when Shujinkou, Nihongo Quest N5, and Koe come out (Japanese language learning video games that are currently in development.) Crystal Hunters a manga that teaches Japanese is low cost though.
But yeah don’t let your family’s negativity get in the way of your hobby.
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As most people have already said 400 bucks is nothing. If i just added up the books i bought for self study and the courses i took i’m well above that.
But it is one if my hobbies and i love it (most of the time) and at least here you can see that it is not time nor money wasted.
Just thinking about what i spend on my other hobbies (books, japanese cds and dvds) i get anxiety sweats… One year i added it all up to check but since than i stopped 
too depressing.
But everytime i listen to a new cd or watch a new dvd or whatever i realize how happy it makes me and honestly if i don’t have any responsibilities like kids, pets or whatever, why shouldn’t i use the money on things that make me happy.
Long story short if you love learning japanese and it makes you happy (and you have the money) why not use it. Who cares what other people think 
My sister spends hundreds on wool for knitting but who would i be to tell her it is stupid …
Yeah I was too harsh sounding in my earlier statements. Learning Japanese is a hobby. Some people like to spend money on their hobbies and that’s fine - those people ensure content for everyone else to enjoy.
I’ve spent… a lot more than a lot of money on Japanese language textbooks. Enough for a few round flight tickets to Japan. I didn’t purchase them because I was under the impression they’d help me learn Japanese faster - I was much more interested in the mindsets of the authors and what insights they could provide me. I did find some real gems along the way though. My absolute favorite book is a little, unassuming pink-colored mini-book that taught me a lot more in a 30 minute read than months of concerted study from most other sources. My physical mountain of remaining unread books silently judges me, asking me if my hobby hasn’t transitioned to merely collecting Japanese language textbooks. 
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Uh, yeah, you can’t just drop that little tidbit without providing further details.
Title, author, publisher, etc. would be appreciated 
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Oh for sure. I’ve mentioned it in so many posts I’ve been worried people would assume I was the author promoting it here lol. I feel like I should get some kind of kickback for how much I mention it. It takes the novel approach of explaining the grammar rules and parts of speech of ENGLISH and how their Japanese equivalents work. It’s a lot easier to study the rules of grammar in another language when you can put it into context with similar rules in your native language.
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I tried for YEARS with free (or very cheap) resources, and none of them worked for me! No matter how hard I tried, reading a webpage and taking notes just didn’t get it stuck in my head! Anki is amazing but it’s so ugly I think my brain just rejects it 
I ended up saving up every penny I could and moved to Japan to study Japanese for a year, which cost a hell of a lot more than WK and Bunpro, and it was the best money I have ever spent.
I spent every dollar in my savings on it, but the difference is night and day. I’m about to enter a Japanese media company next week, and most of my team only speaks Japanese, including my manager. I could have never done that unless I’d gone to language school.
For me, WK has been the only thing that made kanji stick. Nothing else I tried worked. Anki, textbooks, tutors, classes, brute force with a book and a dictionary, nothing! I don’t love spending money on anything, but I work hard and earn my money and I can spend it on what I like.
(This is also what justified an impulsive PS5 and BG3 purchase in HardOff last Friday lol)
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For me, it’s similar but different. I cannot claim, I can never claim, that free resources don’t work for me. I just couldn’t carry out them significantly before coming to WaniKani.
Anki didn’t work, but it started working because of WaniKani and some forum people.
I might have said that WaniKani isn’t enough, but I find it to be enough (for Kanji learning) because I learn the Way from it.
What I want to say is, aim high, don’t aim low, even if you have failed before. Maybe stick with WaniKani for a while if it works, probably, but being too reliant might have an opposite effect.
Learning ability can be improved too. How to remember can be improved. How to focus can be improved. Constancy and discipline can be improved. Learning for textbooks can start working. Maybe how to make connection between materials too. If those are required for previously-used materials to be working.
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The Eiken test is kinda like this too.
In a global trade/business/use of capital sense, I’d argue that the English education in Japan needs as much revision as the materials designed to improve Japanese education.
And there is definitely a cultural element to all of this, which I think is where some of the ‘sub-optimal’ language design comes in to the curriculum design…
English as it’s taught in Japan is a whole 'nother beast. The Japanese education system is a shining example of how beating information into your head just doesn’t work.
The majority of the population has had compulsory English throughout their student lives and yet cannot effectively communicate or even understand English, to the point that many businesses simply refuse to serve non-Japanese (not even just non-Japanese speakers, but non-Japanese people who cannot demonstrate near-native Japanese fluency).
This is mostly not due to any type of racism or nationalism, but simply because they don’t want to fail at providing what they feel is exceptional service, which a language barrier hampers.
From what I have heard, but can’t attest personally to, they are still using the standards and methods put forth from the late 70s and early 80s, including having cassette boomboxes blaring incomprehensibly.
ohhh I know what you mean with collecting lanuage books.
I bought so many text books or JLPT Books and haven’t done anything with most of them but open them, being confused as to how the text book is supposed to teach anything and closing it again …
why do jlpt study books only work with lists… how would that help me learn anything…
sorry kind of beside the point of the thread.
I also collect manga, when I start a series and love it, but then i stop reading it after waiting for the next volume so I have at least 4 or 5 series where i have 3 unread volumes each on the shelf…
but they still make me happy, so money well spend 
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Almost any resource can be added to your repertoire if you approach it with the right mindset, although admittedly some are worse than others.
For JLPT materials, their focus is on drilling, and that’s what you should do with them.
This is how I would treat a JLPT book, but whatever methods you can apply that work for you are the ones you should use.
Don’t think of a JLPT book as an actual “book” to “read” cover to cover. Leaf through the ENTIRE book. Highlight in a color like green as you go things that you absolutely don’t need to review.
Start from the front of the book, working in it in 2-page chunks at a time. Work through about 1/3 of the book. The next day, start from the beginning again. Mark everything you didn’t remember last time but remember this time in yellow. Until you get 1/3 of the way through.
Now move on to the next 1/3 of the book. Do the same. Work through the next third of the book in 2-page chunks, skipping the green marks. Don’t mark anything in yellow the first time through, just like last time. The next day, start at the beginning of the 2nd third of the book again, this time highlighting everything in yellow that you remember from last time.
Now move on to the last third of the book. Do the same. Work through it in 2-page chunks, not marking anything. The next day, work through it again and highlight what you remember from the day before in yellow.
Now start from the beginning of the entire book again. This time work through the ENTIRE book in 2-page chunks, skipping everything already marked yellow, and highlighting everything you remember this time around in yellow as you go.
Wait a day, then go through the entire book again. Once the ENTIRE book is yellow where you didn’t initially mark it green, you can start focusing on it 1 page at a time until you can mark it all green.
That’s how I would turn a JLPT book into an Anki deck.
No.
Anki is free and you can do whatever you want with it. Which is basically what the dev of this site does but they charge you for it!
BunPro changes a lot but after the introduction stages the system totally falls apart because the grammar becomes more niche and less obvious so you’ll get frustrated and quit.
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Anki works and it’s important, but it’s ugly. Sounds stupid but people don’t like ugly software. It’s not the best way to start getting into a language, but something that can help you later on once you made language learning a habit.
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For me … I have difficulties understanding on how Anki works – perhaps because I am not a tech-savvy hence I have deleted my account there ( then again, each person has its own preference )
I found WK is quite helpful --and recently register with Bunpro as part of my language learning journey … and found that Bunpro has quite a “clean-neat-modern” design (web-base) …and I am wondering if WK & Bunpro are same “company” (or team) –
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It’s pretty for me.
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Don’t think so
WaniKani is run by tofugu and usually their other projects were advertised together (RIP Textfugu/eto eto)
Pretty sure I heard Bunpro Was made by a WK fan who wanted ‘Wanikani but for grammar’
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