Kanji learning free sources, please!

I just found out that Wanikani isn’t totally free. It was such a big shock because I was truly invested in it as it’s the best kanji learning source for me. I have been doing really well learning the kanji characters, but… only two more levels left and then I won’t be able to continue because I don’t afford the payment. I’ll truly miss it… How frustrating and depressing!
I would really appreciate it, if any one of you guys knows about other free Kanji learning sources which are as good and effective. Thanks in advance!
I look forward to your replies.

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The ones I know of are:

  • Anki (you’ll need to pick out a kanji learning deck)
  • Koohii
  • Renshuu * This is more known for its grammar but it does have kanji decks. Not sure how comprehensive.

Of course they won’t be exactly like WK so you may or may not like them.

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Actually, even if you don’t have a paid subscription, you can still use WaniKani.
You won’t be able to have lessons and reviews for items above level 3, but you will be able to look up the items themselves:

https://community.wanikani.com/t/level-3-completed-no-more-levels/56235/6?u=trunklayer

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For Kanji SRS, there is https://www.kanji.koohii.com/ (with 2 i’s), which references Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig, though the website is free. Koohi with 1 i

I heard that jpdb.io can be configured for Kanji learning, in addition to just vocabularies.

There might be other Resources , like https://www.kanjidamage.com/, but I am not sure of the tests or exercises.

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You can also use Anki! It’s a great, free SRS. There are a ton of pre-made decks similar to Wanikani.

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Thank you everyone so much! I appreciate your kindness and comprehensive answers. I’ll make sure I try out all the solutions you have suggested.

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I find JPDB’s approach very interesting and it’s probably what I would try first if I was starting now, but at the same time I have no practical experience with it so maybe it’s not as good as I think it is.

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You should see if there is any way you can get a copy of any beginner’s Japanese textbook (Genki 1 or Nakama 1), as any of the reasonably popular ones should teach you ~200 kanji along with many other useful things. You may also wish to write kanji to help you remember them, in which case I would recommend giving kanji.sh a try.

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I think I’ll do well with JPDB. Thank you!
Kanjish seems good too but for some reason the downloading isn’t going through.

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I would highly appreciate it, if you clarify further what you mean by I can look up the items themselves. You know, I checked out the link that you provided but I couldn’t get exactly what it is that I will be allowed to do on WaniKani beyond level 4.

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You can display the various entries but you can’t SRS them, so it’s pretty useless as a primary tool.

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But you can still study them

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Manually? Like cavepeople?

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Still better than not having any access to them. This, btw, is how I learned kanji. I made my notes on them and manually pasted them into those notes

But you’re level 60!

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I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience. My head can’t wrap itself around the idea. It’s… new, maybe… Could you please send me a screenshot of what this all looks like? This can serve as my next step on WaniKani after the free levels are over. I don’t want to quit WaniKani, so please help me make a clear, solid next step on WaniKani.

Thank you in advance!

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:rofl::rofl::rofl: That’s hilarious! You’ve got a great sense of humor. Thank you! :+1:t2::+1:t2::+1:t2:

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Did you see the screenshots in the link I posted?
Let me try again:

image

You can then click on any item there and see its page

Or you can search radicals, kanji and vocab directly

image

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I saw the link, yeah, but now I get the full picture. However, this doesn’t help when it comes to studying and reviewing… At least as far as I can see. May be you have an idea to study and review them (this way) that you apply yourself…

I’m really grateful to you for the clear answer and the effort you took to capture all these screenshots!

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I was more talking about the referencing purposes – like you’d be able to see what radicals go to what kanji and what kanji go to what words… For example, you want to know which kanji use the “Jackhammer” radical. First, you find the radical – you can also use search for that:

image

You can then click on any of the kanji

And then, at the lower part of the kanji’s page, you can see the visually similar kanji and the vocab it’s used in

I took quite extensive notes and managed to somehwat duplicate it for myself.
You can use, for example, https://obsidian.md/ to take notes on radicals, kanji and vocab.

Anyway, sorry, this is probably not what you were looking for, but I was just pointing out that WK can be used for reference even without paid subscription.

Anyway, best of luck with your studies! wricat

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