Hi all, I’ve really just starting to learn Japanese properly after about a decade of having a bank of useful phrases and vocab but little ability to have conversations and no ability to read.
I am just about to finish WK level 3 and subscribe. At the same time I’m also self studying Genki 1 and using Bunpro.
Just to provide a contrasting opinion, if you’re struggling with kanji motivation, I had the same experience at the beginning and actually found it helpful to get through at least Genki Ch 6 before doing additional kanji (there are some in the back half of Genki). You could still look those up here or another resource when studying them, and then after you get further along in Genki, then come back and see if you like WK better. Or maybe it’s not for you, there are also other methods. But I wonder if you should wait to decide and just get a grammar and vocab foundation first. You’re going at a similar pace as I did the basics, and trust me, even if you start kanji in 2023 you won’t be behind. You’ll need to get through Genki II to be able to start reading (with difficulty), and children’s books have furigana. IMHO kanji knowledge won’t be limiting for you for a couple of years at least whereas grammar and vocab knowledge are the early barriers to basic reading and conversation skills.
IIRC the staff wanted to be more transparent about what you could learn on WK and made the content visible. It’s possible to browse to items from levels 4+ normally on a free account.
best practices for the curious
When you’re building applications or services that other people will use, there’s also some work to be done to respect the access to content granted by a subscription to WaniKani (per our terms and generally being a good citizen).
One could argue that WKStats would still be following the ToS if it listed all those items as being available on WaniKani, but didn’t let the user see the details if they aren’t subscribed. (Though even showing the details might be okay since, as you pointed out, they are available to free users on WK itself.) I think that section of the ToS is meant more for interactive apps that let you do reviews, reverse reviews, etc, since that would basically amount to stealing WaniKani’s functionality without paying for it. Of course, it’s up to @rfindley to decide if that’s something he’s comfortable changing on WKStats.
Agree totally! I find the faster I try to learn the less I retain. I need to go over the Genki chapters multiple times to really bed it in to my brain. And that’s fine because it’s not a race! I fully accept that it will take me a long time, if ever, to be fluent!
That’s a great perspective, thank you! I’m thinking I will shift my focus back to more Genki and just keep my WK reviews ticking over while I get a little further into Genki.
