Is there any specific order in which kanji and words on Wanikani are taught?

[JustSphynx]

I was just wondering if there was any specific order that wanikani teaches kanji and vocabulary in. Any help would be nice

[OmukaiAndi]

it’s similar to how rtk or kklc teach the kanji, wk tries to build on prior material. means it starts out giving you lots of counters, because the first thing it teaches are numbers, and counters are about the only thing you can do with those. then it adds new stuff over time, always trying to incorporate what you already learned.

wk make up their own “radicals” to introduce kanji which are not based on other kanji learned earlier.

[JustSphynx]

I don’t really get it fully. Could you explain it a little more?

[OmukaiAndi]

yeah, say wk teaches you the kanji for the numbers 1-10, then it teaches you 日 (day), then it shows you “one day” 一日, “two days” 二日, “one or two days” 一日二日 and so on, because that can be done with what you learned.

then it teaches you 本, followed by 一本、二本, but also 日本 and 本日, because those are possible with these kanji, too. it snowballs.

then it introduces another set of “radicals” (parts… heisig calls them primitives, conning named them graphemes, they’re basically just lego pieces)

[JustSphynx]

Thank you. Now I get it

[magiconic]

If you’re asking if they teach vocab words in order of usefulness or complexity, They teach kanji by the complexity of stroke order, starting with the kanji with a small number of strokes and slowly going to more complex kanji (which is why they teach numbers first - 一 (one) is much simpler of a kanji than 階 (floor))

[OmukaiAndi]

oh yeah, usefulness is not relevant here. wk tries to take the easiest route to teach the kanji, which means the order needs to follow a progression path. where that’s not possible, because all learned kanji have been used to teach whatever kanji can be made up of those, it introduces “radicals” to extend the range of possible new kanji to teach.

vocabulary is absolutely only there to give you more exposure to the kanji and teach you more than the one reading it shows you initially. it’s not meant to be useful or frequent (but most of it is worth learning anyway).