Hi everyone, it’s been a while since I’ve used Wanikani much and it’s great to see how active everything is here. I got to level 60 about two years ago and I’ve had some time to reflect on my experiences with this program.
I really loved the time I spent learning on Wanikani, and honestly nothing else has really come close to it in my journey. I started WK in summer 2021, about a month after I started studying the language. I kept up with lessons and did reviews every day until I hit level 60, and it gave me a huge advantage in my classes over other students (at least in reading). I kept at about 20 lessons per day, until some life events happened and I slowed down around level 22 (& the infamous legalese wall). I just graduated with an unrelated degree, and Japanese has definitely been on the back burner for a while. I still read often, but slowly, and I mainly use Anki for mining vocabulary.
Wanikani was genuinely fun and rewarding, and I always felt like I was making real progress every day. I miss using it, but I feel like I’m kind of trapped now at level 60, with 2000 reviews for words I likely haven’t seen in years. I would love to revisit earlier levels, but I know that I can’t be as consistent as I was on my first round through. If I reset, I worry that I’d permanently lock myself out of future content forever. But there’s also no way to replicate the structured experience of leveling through WK. I know that the best advice is to abandon the walled garden of WK and engage with native content, but after all this time, I want to be able to utilize this amazing resource without a full reset and the massive commitment it requires. I have access to all these cards, but no real way to review them unless I reset or jump into a deck of 7000 burned items with no structure.
Before the website overhaul a few years back, I’d use user scripts to provide this, but I didn’t really need it at the time as I was still working through levels. It was just for extra fun, because I really enjoyed using Wanikani. Plus, the script I used didn’t provide immediate access to things like example sentences or the radicals used, which were very useful to have in the actual program.
I guess I want to know whether there are any plans to give users a way to reexperience the content in a more meaningful way at some point in the future. I would love the option to select a particular level (or range of levels) and review each item within it. I don’t want the full SRS experience again, I just want to refresh my memory and fill in gaps. Or, I would even take the opportunity to start again at a low level if doing so didn’t mean permanently losing my progress. I was also hopeful at some point that unique decks could be created, either officially or by fans, that would cover the vocab and kanji needed to read through particular books or manga without mining and using Anki. I just really love Wanikani and find it much more engaging than other apps. Nothing else replicates the typing experience or the core focus on kanji. Or the weird vibes.
Like I said, I’ve been away for a while (and seriously benefitting from the time I spent on this amazing website), so maybe I’m just not aware of recent changes that would solve my problems. Regardless, I’ll always recommend Wanikani to everyone interested in learning Japanese because it made the thing that everyone fears, kanji memorization, into the most fun I’ve ever had learning something new. I just can’t quit my durtles.
Thank you to everyone on the Wanikani team and all the people who make this such a great community!
