I’m a big fan of kana-only vocabulary, but when introducing grammar related words, it’d be best to place them in the lowest levels. I (re)started studying Japanese around 20 days ago and my textbook has already covered all これ・この・ここ・どこ related words. I’d suggest moving those words down to the first three levels. Getting to level 7 takes at least around 35/40 days and by then most beginners will have learned those words.
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While I like the idea, I have some feedback:
- I’m not sure I agree with adding more loanwords like ガラス or タバコ: Those are surely self explanatory (to an english speaker anyway).
- For me, the more useful words would be the onomatopeia, phenomime and psychomime words and those odd kana only adverbs that japanese has a lot of. Even in regular study outside of WK I have trouble remembering these. I only see a small handful in the list you’ve posted.
- I would also echo calls for a “just burn this right away” option. I’m level 60, and while I am happy to learn new words like ペラペラ, I don’t need to be wasting my time on basics like ここ
- 紛れ is already in WK, why add まぐれ separately? Same with する, you have to imagine people would pick up what that means eventually.
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Oof marone, they want us here forever
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Yes, it’s vocabulary. But, no, it doesn’t make sense to be a part of WaniKani itself, unless either opt-in or on a separate track. WaniKani is, and has always been, advertised and promised as a KANJI-learning tool. And, the point of the vocab was to REINFORCE what has been learned about the KANJI.
The argument that adding kana-only vocabulary into a Kanji-learning website is meant to help people get fluent in Japanese as quickly as possible is ludicrous. Fluency requires grammar, no matter how it’s learned. So, this is a throw-away marketing claim meant to placate, again. Stop placating and start listening!
Bad. Very bad! It should have been, at minimum, an A/B test. I don’t want kana-vocab on my kanji-learning tool. Never did. Let me opt-out, now. It’s only going to be a distraction for me. Given the way the API works, you can easily add this option in a day or two. ADD IT.
There’s already enough to go through to learn the kanji as is. This many words means that it absolutely should be a separate track. Otherwise, the scope of WaniKani will actually LOSE it’s strength: The focus on KANJI.
Since you’re not making this OPT-OUT (which it NEEDS to be), you are now forcing me to review all of these words that, thanks to my grammar studies, I should already have burned.
Things that I have to REPEAT
Wednesday, May 17 2023
Level 3: リンゴ - apple
Wednesday, May 24 2023
Level 2: おはよう - good morning
Level 2: ホテル - hotel
Level 3: いつ - when
Level 3: コーヒー - coffee
Level 3: これ - this one
Level 3: こんにちは - hello
Level 3: する - to do
Wednesday, May 31 2023
Level 4: うん - yep
Level 4: こんばんは - good evening
Level 4: さようなら - good-bye
Level 4: テレビ - television
Level 4: どれ - which one
Level 4: ノート - notebook
Level 4: はい - yes
Level 4: あなた - you
Level 4: いいえ - no
Level 4: コンビニ - convenience store
Wednesday, June 7 2023
Level 5: すみません - excuse me
Level 5: それ - that one
Level 5: デパート - department store
Level 6: あれ - that one over there
Level 6: カバン - bag
Level 6: この - this
Level 6: タクシー - taxi
Level 6: どの - which
Level 6: ドル - dollar
Level 6: ない - not there
Wednesday, June 14 2023
Level 7: その - that
Level 7: あの - that over there
Level 8: ここ - here
Level 8: どこ - where
Level 8: でも - but
Level 8: まだ - still
Level 8: もしもし - telephone hello
Level 9: あそこ - over there
Level 9: ガラス - glass
Level 9: キロ - kilo
Wednesday, June 21 2023
Level 9: そこ - there
Level 10: サービス - service
Level 10: しかし - however
Level 10: タバコ - tobacco
Level 10: ちょっと - a little
Level 10: とても - very
Level 10: パン - bread
Level 10: ビル - building
Level 12: もう - already
Wednesday, June 28 2023
Level 13: マンション - apartment building
Level 13: ワンピース - dress
Level 15: トランプ - deck of cards
Level 30: バイキング - buffet
Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that WaniKani is trying to help students learn more. However, this is a feature that should have been Opt-In from the start! (At least for lifetime members who have already started or “finished” learning the very words you’re publishing.)
At the very least, give us the option to mark them as known.
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To be fair, there’s nuance with the two you mentioned. For instance, there’s ガラス and グラス, but ガラス is the material and グラス is what you would drink from. Also I don’t know how they plan to teach it, but タバコ is both tobacco generally and also just cigarettes specifically (due to abbreviation).
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I’m curious as to your choice of words.
- Level 4: こんばんは - good evening is already taught as 今晩は
- Level 8: もしもし - telephone hello is already taught as 申し申し
But two examples aside, what determines “all the words you need to be able to read Japanese comfortably.” Bunpro is currently implementing a system teaching vocab, the the N5 section alone has 1100 words, with some of the other levels having more than double that.
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Missing the kana word that I’ve most often heard spoken by a Japanese person: やっぱり
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Since a lot of kana-only vocab originate from kanji readings (they are just very uncommon and/or hardly ever used), it would be cool if you could add the kanji readings for them on the lessons or vocab page. For those like myself who are interested in/curious about that sort of thing. i.e 林檎 for リンゴ, etc.
I guess I could just google them as well, but it wouldn’t hurt to have them be inclusive within Wanikani.
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this just annoys me so much
WK is an excellent tool for LEARNING KANJI. it does this one thing, and does it very well.
and kanji are a really big issue when learning japanese (if you want to read and write, not just speak). they’re perhaps the most difficult aspect of learning japanese. so it’s good to have a website/app dedicated specifically to learning kanji.
but SRS is a very limited tool. in an SRS you’re learning things OUT OF CONTEXT. which is why vocab using the kanji just learned is so important: it provides context.
but for learning vocab without kanji, SRS is STUPID. it is so much better and easier to learn vocab in context. for example in reading.
adding thousands of kana-only vocab (they did say they have plans for thousands) actively SABOTAGES the one thing that WK does really well.
that is NOT what i paid WK some 300 dollars for.
(sorry for the rant. and for shouting. was aiming for some reasonable text, but that’s not what was in me)
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I am quite sure that every kana only word will come with at least example sentence (possibly more), so there will be context.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like we’ve seen many people request something like this.
Reading this thread, you could be left with the impression that no one had ever asked for it before.
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I had the same thought 
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I’m learning about lots of cool products from this debacle, thanks fallyn for pointing it out and the WK team in general for creating this opportunity
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I’ve seen it before but it didn’t feel like very many people. It’s a site with a massive user base that has been around for like a decade though, so I’m sure literally everything has been requested honestly.
Im curious about what tofugu did when deciding this was the move to make. Surely they wouldn’t just go off of a couple forum posts. Did they randomly sample/survey users of the site to see what they want? If so I’m curious to see the data
If there is no actual data then 100% the reasonable assumption is that user requests didn’t actually go into their decision making in the first place, no?
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It is really weird. Maybe everyone here being so vocally against this scared off the people who actually want it.
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I don’t really understand what you mean here.
I just know I can remember plenty of people curious why WK doesn’t have kana vocab, or wishing it did. I’m not making any assumptions about how WK made the decision.
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Cool feature, thanks.
Don’t really understand the drama when this can easily be scripted out (and if you have strong opinions about this I suspect you’re probably running a bunch of scripts already, so what’s one more?).
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If the wanikani team didn’t bother to collect any data on if this was a desired addition, the reasonable assumption is that what users wanted wasn’t important to tofugu really.
Even though I can’t seem to remember them, even if there were users asking for it it doesn’t really change anything though.
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I guess I just don’t see why we’re assuming they didn’t do anything to make the decision. Just because some people here are really angry?
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We aren’t, I said “if” 
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