I’ve been learning Japanese for 8 months now I feel a little bit confident and can understand the many phrases in anime. I just arrived at level 8 and I’ve been working every day for 6 months. I am going to reach 60 but I cannot speak the language, I just can understand the words. My question is, what should I do to learn Japanese fully, while doing wanikani at the same time, or wanikani only is just enough.
Thank you! have a good day… cant wait to get to the cake.
Get some speaking practice, either shadowing, face to face, or online.
I can understand most of what I read/hear, but I have a harder time speaking because I don’t practice.
(Watch a bunch of series/anime so you get more familiar with how things are said, and can use phrases without thinking too much about it.)
The short answer is no. No single learning resource is enough by itself. Even WaniKani, while it teaches a lot of kanji and a lot of vocab, and it’s arguably the best resource for this, is not enough, you’ll probably reach a point where you’ll encounter non-WaniKani kanji that you’ll have to study independently yourself, or new readings to already known kanji. Technically I learned all the kanji on WK, and I’m constantly coming across new ones while reading books. Learning never stops
No, Wanikani only is never going to be enough if you want to understand Japanese. You will be able to recognise a lot of kanjis and some vocabulary, but that’s about it. There are a lot of words (even very frequent ones) that you won’t learn on Wanikani (as it’s focused on teaching kanji), and you won’t be learning any grammar, that is essential.
You’ll definitely need to learn plenty of grammar. There are many textbooks, and Tae Kim’s guide is also useful. So are the Nihongo no mori sessions on youtube.
You’ll need listening skills, which WK won’t give you. Watch lots of dramas. Especially ones with exact subtitles in E and J. Watch in J with E subtitles (perhaps many times) then in J with J subtitles (perhaps many times) then in J with no subtitles. When you can understand a drama with no subtitles, your listening skills (for that material) are good.
Once you gain enough grammar and vocabulary, read lots. Read short stories, novels, blogs, newspapers, non-fiction.
Watch lots. Drama, movies, news, documentaries.
Once your grammar, vocabulary, and kanji recognition are good enough, switch to looking up things in a J-J dictionary, not a J-E dictionary.
Not to worry, there’s plenty of work to do to master Japanese. WK is an awesome resource, but imagine how much English you would learn if you just mastered lists of vocabulary words!
Nope. Kanji is but one part. Compare it to playing the piano, you’re just learning your ‘Do re mi fa so…’ but you can’t play them into chords, arpeggios, those that will actually fabricate it into a musical piece.
This is the one thing that I should have done earlier (around 1 year into Nihongo after passing N3) both on the vocabulary and grammar definitions. I realized that I hit a wall when I was about to reach 2 years learning the language only to find out that this was the cause. It opened a lot of passages for learning that have been unaccessible due to the limitation of Japanese->English->Brain flow. So I really suggest that once you hit intermediate train yourself to learn Japanese->Brain for an easier recall and a more natural feel of language.
(If I don’t encounter them in the wild.)