yeah i woudn’t say the website team are lying but i can see why people don’t like it. Like if you made a videogame and a large group of speedrunners beat it in (X) amount of time i woudn’t lower the time drastically because some outliers beat it super fast. In order to finish wanikani in a year people would have to do things that could possibly be pretty overwhelming so, and some people that do join are looking to learn japanese quickly (we can argue that that’s a bad thing, but people who feel this way might be drawn in by the marketing) so, i have mixed feelings on it. It doesn’t make me hate the website but in a way weird marketing things bother me more when i DO like something. Its like when your best friend does something kinda iffy, you wanna make them stop because you like em. But i don’t exactly have a strong opinion on this either, i just know marketing and ads being vague as a whole annoys people for various reasons.
By “all” 2000 you mean the 2072 on wk right? Because there definitely are a lot more than 2000 that you need to learn.
Also this stood out to me
You can be halfway literate in a few months
You won’t be remotely literate by just finishing wanikani, and certainly not halfway literate in a few months.
As my one year subscription is coming to an end next month I am quite worried about that. At my level I sometimes wish I could just rush into the Kanjis that I encountered instead of going through ones that I can potentially forget because they’re not frequently used in the genre that I’m reading in (I will be surprised if I encounter the word 潜水艦 in a book about the Heian period). Maybe it’s better and more practical for me to start creating my own Kanji deck based on the words that I read. I even watched one of Dogen’s videos where he essentially said that he didn’t specifically studied Kanji by itself but instead learned them through vocabulary which is a very tempting idea. What a dilemma…
Nice video. 
As someone who knows how long editing can take, I appreciate the high quality.
Yeah, thats what you should do at this point if you wanna go fsat
Would definitely second this. I’m actually supplementing my WaniKani kanji adventures with Anki, especially for kanji I haven’t learned on WaniKani, but found either in a textbook or just in a potentially useful word and I think it’s worth it.
In this context I mean literate as in ability to read letters, not Japanese as a whole. Unless you are referring to kanji specifically, in which vase I respectfully disagree because I was able to functionally play Pokemon around halfway through, and without having finished yet can read most manga with looking up very few words.
Yes, but also in general 2000 or so 常用漢字 that you need to learn. WK skips a few but not that many. Are you suggesting that you need to learn more kanji than the average Japanese person? Cuz that’s crazy talk, friend.
Actually I’ve stopped at level 52 for a couple months now going through the breadstick expansion on Anki. It’s basically a list of all the common words not taught in WaniKani. I’d recommend going through it at some point!!
Bruh what. I read shitty rom com light novels and I’ve had to learn like 3000. The average japanese person certainly knows more than 2000 kanji.
Can you read the letters tho? I mean…sometimes you can. But like…sometimes you cant. At the end of the day, when it comes to the reading of jukugo words you don’t know you’re really just guessing. And likewise for the meaning.
Man, I actually love your review!
I am also a Canadian hoping to one day try living in Japan just to experience the culture there (I already know experienced living in Europe and America, so I wanted to see Asia next!).
Your review gives me a bit of hope (currently at level 2). I will try to supplement my wanikani studies while studying the 2000 most common kanji in Anki.
I wish I had bought the lifetime, from now it will only cost me more and it will take me an while.
@Vanilla @AndyMender @gfyh455ji6wegrtjyaja Thank you very very much for the advice. I’ll try to crawl my way to at least level 51 to clear the N2 and N3 Kanjis. It’s really hard to fight against sunk cost fallacy especially for something that I’ve gotten used to after a year. Thanks again.
If you want any pointers for how to make the transition, just hmu. I know it can be rough kinda going off on your own after being under the structure of wk
Really liked your video! Agree on most/all points.
good video! I enjoyed it 
I’m still relatively new to wk so it was fun to watch and get an opinion from someone who’s been here quite a bit longer than me!
(after reading the replies, I feel compelled to mention that I am also canadian haha)
Oh, yeah I guess so. But I mean, if you can read all the常用 you basically classify as functionally literate, I think saying you won’t be remotely literate is a PRETTY big exaggeration.
Part of the reason I bought it is so I wouldn’t feel pressured to complete it in a set time, haha. I realized I need to study all the vocab not in WK, for example… I took the N3 test and there were a lot of words I didn’t know but probably should have.
That’s a great idea : D I started WK just before I took a beginner Japanese class, and went through the Genki textbook vocab decks, but I think a more general list is better.
No, you’ll be good at giving educated guesses on how to sound out words. Your actual ability to read from the knowledge given on wanikani alone will be lackluster. Of course, just hitting level 60 alone teaches 0 grammar, but I’d be ok with ignoring that fact.
But don’t most of them have furigana? From my experience almost always LNs are generous with them for non jouyou kanji. So you only need to know the word at some level. Probably can guess a lot from context and radicals, as well. A ton of them only have like one word where they are used. So you don’t really have to “learn” the kanji. I doubt all Japanese can read them readily if they are not avid readers.
I see Japanese not being able to read some words in Let’s Plays fairly often, too.