May I ask if you use a special template for your Kanjis on Anki?
I’m greedy and want to know as much Japanese as possible, particularly since I’ve decided that Portuguese English and Japanese are the only languages I’ll ever know, I have neither the time nor the inclination to include a fourth. Go for mad skillz or go home
Congrats on making that high in year (and some). I’m closing on 2 year daily streak (without missing a day), and I’m barely Lvl40.
English is not my native language either, so I share some of your frustration. Some of the most difficult words are the ones where I don’t properly grasp the English translation. Good example is from Lvl17 識 = discerning. I still don’t have good idea what that means, so I keep failing it.
On the plus side, sometimes I learn English words that are somewhat useful, for example 固有名詞 = proper noun, or recently learned 麵棒 = rolling pin.
As for feeling of useless words, sometimes I get that. But I often have (Japanese) TV on the background playing, or when reading manga, I get super happy when I recognize some rare word I thought was useless. That’s the thing that keeps me going, even though already at Lvl40 I can watch TV or read newspaper fairly ok.
Haha, I totally get this reaction. At least you’ll know it now if you ever want to read 鬼滅の刃, as it pops up pretty frequently there! Purely coincidentally I started reading that series at level 21 so it was good timing for me haha.
Very common in names too. One of the famous kendo nitoryuu sensei has that kanji too.
Edit: and the famous song “fuji no hana”
Another fun “kanji use” -moment was week or two ago when I saw the news about Haiti president being shot. Told my wife:
-Wow, president of Haiti is dead
-How did he die?
-銃殺
-Wow, how you know that word??
The first reasonable quitting post that had me nodding while reading all the way to the end you actually nailed a lot of issues I had with the system that I couldn’t even put to words, so for you to do that, your English must be really great for my standards. I can go through WK with all it’s faults, still I understand that your mileage may vary. Good luck on your future Japanese studies, I wish you the best!
Fun fact: of the two hundred most common family names in Japan, all of the names with 藤 as the second kanji, and only those, are read entirely in on’yomi. It’s one of the easiest ways to work out the reading for a family name - most of the rest are kun’yomi, though some are a mix of kun, on and nanori.
(Given names can be all over the shop, though.)
藤井 is not top200?
Edit. #49 here: https://forebears.io/japan/surnames
That’s not read with the onyomi. And it’s the first kanji.
It’s at 44th place.
However, it doesn’t have 藤 as the second kanji.
you have between 1 and 2 months of levels left. Why not just finish it? I’m getting FOMO by proxy just by reading this
Would thumbs down thread if I could.
Ah my bad, I blame my English. I thought you said there’s no name in Top200 where 藤 is first kanji.
Wise to quit now. If the resource isn’t serving you anymore then it is time to devote energies elsewhere.
And wanikani used to end at level 50.
So I officially declare that you have completed wanikani.
Can’t argue with mad skillz
I just use the simple one anki comes with. Kanji on the front, kunyomi and onyomi, plus meaning and the sentence I extracted it from, on the back.
I am at about the same level as you and I kinda feel the same way. The jinmeiyo kanji that don’t have any vocab don’t feel that motivating either…
What!!? I thought it’s illegal to make a reasonable and constructive “I’m quiting Wanikani” post like this.
I agree with this even though I haven’t gotten to any yet. If they’re going to include jinmeiyou kanji they should include some common names as vocabulary to reinforce them.
Totally agree about abstract mnemonics being way harder to wrap your brain around than memory by association. I’m still low level but if I can spy a chance to remember a kanji by a place or proper name rather than the given weird mnemonic I almost always take it. 台 was so so easy for me because of Sendai (actually, I’d just completed the Sendai section of Persona 5 Strikers when I learned that kanji, so I recognized it from being up on the navigation the whole time), which was certainly more helpful than “machine mouth” or whatever. And like 90% of 村’s common uses are in surnames, even though none of them are actually on WK.