Level 21 before 2021!

Actually, I’m not sure what a 12-key keyboard is. You’ll have to enlighten me. :upside_down_face:

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It allows you to slide to make the other sounds. Like tap is あ, slide left and you get い instead, up is う and right is え. Same for か、き、etc. It takes a day or two to get used to, but it is lots faster. And you can also double tap or more which is nice for the dakuten :slight_smile:

edit: I just realized that when you’re typing, the (han)dakuten/small kana key is where the keyboard switching globe is in the screenshot, so that’s where you get those combinations.
I’ve got this for reading and Anki mode for meaning, reviews are a breeze now*

*I wish

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This seems like a great idea! Count me in!

Also, does anyone have any extra places to study/learn? I’ve been using Wanikani by itself and want to try doing more as well.

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Welcome!

I use Tobira on my own and with a teacher on iTalki. If you’re intermediate level then Tobira is great. If you’re a beginner you could start working on Genki or another text book. Also Cure Dolly on YouTube is a great resource for understanding the structure of Japanese.

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That’s pretty neat. I haven’t had much opportunity to play around with the Japanese keyboard on my phone, but I do think it might differ from one to another. Mine converts romaji to kana and possible words that you might be after because dictionary.

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It partly depends what you want to get out of Japanese! For me, I want to improve on all aspects of the language, except hand-writing because I barely do that in English. So that means:

The building blocks

  • Kanji (WaniKani)
  • Grammar (Genki textbooks)
  • Vocabulary
    • Completed half of the core 2k Anki deck (having audio at the front of the card so I’m not stumped by new kanji that I’ll later learn with WaniKani)
    • Now considering kitsun.io (using the 10k deck but hibernating all cards that contain kanji I haven’t encountered in WaniKani yet)
    • Or just immersing myself because I think I know enough to get by

Using that knowledge

  • Speaking (I have weekly catch-ups with my mum, who’s Japanese, and a family friend. But you could do the same with something like HelloTalk.)
  • Listening (Watching a ‘Let’s play’ Stardew Valley series because Japanese has taken over my life and I miss gaming :crying_cat_face:)
  • Reading

I don’t currently practice writing in Japanese. I’m saving it until I feel a bit more comfortable with the language and even then, it’s not my biggest priority.

So yeah, I would suggest identifying what you want to be able to do in Japanese (could be everything, could just be reading, for example). Then, you’ll want to focus on the building blocks first before using that knowledge in practice (when you feel able to) which will really help reinforce what you’ve learned. But that’s just what I do, everyone is different! Hope it helps in some way. :slight_smile:

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Seconded for Cure Dolly’s videos, I should have started on that from day 1.

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Thanks ! I’ll have to check these out when I have time.
I’ll watch some Cure Dolly videos for the time being.

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Sry to meddle in, but did you use kitsun before ? Is it worth the price ? I’m working with anki too, but I’m just too much a coding noob to really make it work the way I want to.

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I just finished my trial period and considering whether I should subscribe. It is quite expensive, which is why I’m thinking about whether I should hold off for now and see how far I get with immersing myself in native materials.

The reason I tried Kitsune out is like you say, Anki is such a faff! I’m a developer so I do code for a living but I’m also lazy and time is more precious to me than money. :sweat_smile:

I really liked the ‘10k - Kitsun Optimized’ deck in Kitsune if you want to try it out and haven’t used up your trial period. The way I set it up was to hibernate all vocab that are included in WaniKani so I don’t have to learn something twice. I also hibernated all cards that contained kanji with a WaniKani level equal to mine or higher. My plan was to un-hibernate the previous level’s cards each time I levelled up so that I could encounter more vocab that contain the kanji that I’d just guru-ed.

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I do feel like there are a lot of coders on WaniKani.

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Mmmm I feel like I can get away with saying this because it probably applies to me too. But there might be a common denominator here of geeky people being attracted to both coding and to Japanese culture.

What do you think?

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Just as a random tip you might find it better to download the Google Japanese keyboard from the playstore

But just make sure you’ve got another language on your normal keyboard so you can switch easily (without having to go to settings etc.)

As you can see above, I have Russian as another language. The little globe to the left of the space bar allows me to easily flip between the rly good Japanese keyboard and English.

PS: If you don’t include the other language i.e. Russian in my case, the globe doesn’t show and you can’t switch. At least that’s how it was in my case

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I think I posted about this earlier in the thread, or maybe it was another thread. Coding and Japanese have a similar appeal to me because they’re both very logical and structured.

After typing this I realize you meant Japanese culture, not the Japanese language. I’m not sure why but there does seem to be a relatively high percentage of coders who like anime or Japanese games.

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Yeah, I remember you saying this! It makes sense, I’m definitely starting to appreciate more of the logic behind Japanese when it seems like pure madness at first.

Oh also, I forgot to mention this but now you’re here, I got the full audiobook collection of Tales of the City upon your recommendation. :blush: I haven’t actually started it yet, because studying Japanese has taken over my life but I plan to before I head out to San Francisco (if I’m still going).

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Oh that’s great! Be careful because that story is really addictive.

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I think a majority of the people that are learning japanese through online programs like this one initially got interested in the japanese language (and culture) because of anime, games and manga. And I think those things are more likely to be discovered by people that generally invest more time into the internet and their computers and have the courage to “take one step beyond Netflix”, so to speak. Well, and if coders aren’t spending time on their computers, what are they doing then? And even though this seems like a big stereotype, just putting all the geeks into one corner, in this specific case I think there’s just a big overlap of the two interest groups. Kinda like @tankwidow already said. And at least for the people around me irl this has definitely proven to be true.
Also, since this a platform where users can implement scripts, I guess the ones able to code tend to stand out more.

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First burn! •́ ‿ ,•̀

I feel like I climbed a mountain

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I was never even that interested in anime or Japanese media but I got exposed through friends because I’m a geek.

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At level 7 I’m finally starting to feel the need to pace down a bit from my regular speed, as I have over 100 apprentice items and over 500 guru items.

For the first time since I started wanikani, I’m finding myself having to carefully pace my vocabulary lessons and try to do them on daily batches of 20 when I have under 100 apprentice items, or wait until I push some content up to Guru or Master before adding more if I have over 100 apprentice items before the lessons. My optimal maximum capacity for apprentice items seems to be between 100 and 125 items, depending on how many of those are radicals and how many are kanji/vocabulary.

How many of you felt in a similar situation around this level? Did this happen to you at a different level? And did it end up slowing your level up pace? I’m still trying to figure out if I slugged down somehow without realising at reviewing Guru items or if it’s an expected wall for everyone.

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