When I first signed up to WaniKani I thought i could rely on it solely to teach me vocab, but I’ve seen orum posts saying that isn’t a good idea. I like the SRS system, but I find Anki so unintuitive and difficult to use. Has anyone got anything else I can use to learn vocab reliabley (doesn’t necesarilly have to be SRS based)?
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kitsun.io is a new SRS site which has vocabulary decks you could use, and it’s also pretty easy to make your own. It’s designed to be more user-friendly than Anki, and is hosted online rather than locally.
That said, although it is currently free-to-use, it will be moving to a paid subscription model in the new year, so if you’re looking for something free then it’s probably not for you.
There’s also memrise, though I haven’t used that much so can’t really comment on it.
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Torii has pretty much everything you need.
From vocab lists that cover all levels from N5 to N1 and the all important Kana-Only list which I didn’t find anywhere else, and a few others that I can’t recall right now. Remember that to read well in Japanese you can’t rely on just knowing all the kanji. There are plenty of words that are exclusively or commonly written in kana (both Hiragana and Katakana), even if they are originally written with kanji.
I’ve been using this app for a few weeks now and I love it. It’s also possible to add your own vocab.
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Also recommending Kitsun 
It will be pay to use soon, but there’s so much goodness in there (mainly those decks from Radish8. I’ve heard they get you to read manga immediately 
)
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I actually probably wouldn’t recommend those decks for the OP until they’re a higher level on WK. You’d have to learn an awful lot of new kanji, and although I’ve been learning a few higher-level kanji myself through reading (and then feeling very clever when they finally appear on WK), at a certain point it becomes inefficient.
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(Yeah, true. But I couldn’t miss this opportunity to flirt 
)
For beginners, I recommend the 4.5k katakana and the Genki decks ^^ The former has 4500 katakana words and the latter helps you learn the vocab existent in the genki books, making the grammar learning quite easier (if you’re using the books).
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I like turtles
why in when saying your name(watashi wa___desu) is the HA symbol used when you say WA?
Hi there, I’m also just at the beginning of the journey. I have started taking some lessons, any pointers for a way to have specific vocab lists for the lesson into one of these SRS learning machines? Im sad to say I find learning a list of words totally impossible.
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i’m on the learning path as well, i’m so confused between Kanji reading and Vocabulary reading! on’yomi or kun’yomi?
What lessons are you having? Following any particular textbook? Because if the textbook is well-known, I’m sure there’s a vocab list for it. As you’d go with the textbook, you could memorize these words (through SRS). Your studies would be more effective overall 
thanks for the message. Makes alot of sense. I am loosely following Genki 1… just into chapter 4, find the wani kani vocab a great help, but unfortunately there are other words to learn. Find the experience very strange, very early steps but so far doesn’t feel like learning a language, at least compared to school French classes, more like solving a series of wierd puzzles.
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You’re self-studying, correct? I do feel like the typical experience you get in a classroom is different to how languages are learned in the online world of self-studying. Each with its pros and cons, of course.
I’ll give you 2 platforms where you can learn the vocab list that’s used in Genki (which by the way are very common words, so don’t feel like it’s ultra specific vocab, as it is not). You can do this using Anki (free and the established SRS platform for all language learners):
https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/Genki
The above link will give you the available decks for Anki that are related to Genki (vocab).
I personally don’t use Anki however. To me the design and the way its built feels old-fashioned and not user-friendly at all. I tried getting into it for 1 year and would constantly drop it. Instead, I’m a big supporter of the SRS platform Kitsun (free for now). It’s created by a WK user and its goal is to bring the quality and the possibilites that SRS allows for learning, but in a quite more intuitive way.
An user (@hinekidori) updated a Genki deck to the Kitsun platform that looks like this:
Link of the deck (must be registed and logged in to see it): Kitsun.io
This deck has the cards tagged with where they are on the Genki, so u can easily find the words of your current chapter and do their lessons (like you’d do on WK):
Let me know if I’m able to help you in any way
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this is brilliant, tx so much for taking the time to put together. Ive registered on kitsun, I see the cards. Now after I’ve done my 117 reviews…
Currently I am learning with wanikani and ive just started with a weekly tutor. The plan is to eventually get to level 10 and take my N5. I don’t have great hopes to ever become fluent but that would seem like some sort of achievement.
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It does seem like a good first achievement indeed! Level 10 too, as it would put you at 1/6 of your journey 
I think you have a good plan, so I’m sure you’ll get results. A lot of people here don’t even get the opportunity to have a tutor. The fact that you’re able to will surely help you
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