Hi All! I have been using Wanikani for about 6-7 weeks now and I am looking for some help/ guidance/recommendations. I will be traveling to Japan with my Daughter in March. We will visit both Tokyo, kyoto, but also the northern countryside where very few foriegn tourist go. I am hoping to learn enough Japanese to make a good effort to communicate and understand people when I’m traveling. I’m using Wanikani, genki, aomi and japanese ammo to help me. Most of my time is on wanikani as its hard to use the other resources due to my lack of vocab and in a way I want to learn the words with the kanji included. Im on level 6 now and its so taxing i feel like every sec i get i need to get through the reviews to stay on tract and not get too behind. So im worried Im not gonna learn how to speak and understand with all the time I have to spend learning on wanikani to keep up. Anyway what are other people’s journeys been like? What would you do if you were me. I wish I knew how hard this was gonna be and started a year before my trip 
If it’s the speaking Japanese you want to concentrate on – then I highly recommend listening to podcasts like
As for reading, a good way to jumpstart your way into reading would be
It’s not free, but it’s well worth it. Apart from kana, you don’t have to know anything to be able to read it – it provides you with translation (both for individual words and for whole sentences) and with notes on grammar and it’s voiced by native speakers.
Anyway, best of luck with your studies and your trip!
You can search topics here for ’irodori’ or go straight to the site:
https://www.irodori.jpf.go.jp/en/about.html
Free usecase based online Japanese course.
Yeah, Wanikani won’t help you with speaking. What I did when I had only 3 months and I wanted to be able to understand and speak some very basic Japanese was a monthly subscription of Pimsleur, they revamped their courses and added an AI feature that tests your speaking. It really helps being able to read, but if you don’t practice speaking enough it’s really hard to move from reading/writing/listening using textbooks to having to produce on the fly and get what people ask you.
You have some good listening and reading dialogues in satori reader that can really help you with conversations with Hotels/airports/restaurants/hospitals. I really recommend those specifically super useful.
If you can get an online tutor to practice some scenarios even better, you can try iTalki or any similar service.
If you focus on the essentials basics you have tons of time, you can learn how to speak without knowing how to read, we all start that way, remember? reading and writing comes last. and 8 months are a very long time to get a handle on the basics.
Edit:
Forgot to mention Lingodeer it teaches grammar, it’s not an srs system so you’re not being swamped by reviews and you are listening to audio the entire time. You also have a speaking option intergraded into the app which is more of a shadowing/repeating thing, which records you and play it and you can compare the difference between how you sound and how the original recording sound.
The problem with textbooks when it comes to speaking and listening, if you’re not in a classroom - you have to deal with mp3 recordings on separate files/sites and most of the speaking exercises are class oriented so you need a partner, not ideal for learning at home by yourself. With Lingodeer you can really streamline all the aspects of the language at the same time organically which is an ideal combo that only an app can give you. I think they have a sale now so it’s also a plus. I used it when I started and came back to it after a 4 years hiatus and it is still a favorite of mine.
Your resources are great. What you need in my opinion is to just balance your time better (less kanji, more all other skills). I agree with 2tea’s recommendations!
My log is here, the first post summarises what I’ve been up to
I put most emphasis on speaking first and for this you don’t need as much emphasis on kanji. Let go of this idea that you need to learn the kanji with every vocab as that will hold you back massively in conversation skills.
The kind of conversations you’ll be capable of having next march will be basic but you’ll be so happy to have put in the effort!
Grammar. Genki gives you all the vocab you need to use it and furigana, so just focus on the grammar and shadow with the audio on all the exercises. Keep moving through it. Make sure you’ll get through about half of Genki 2 before you go. Make a schedule and move ahead before you feel ready if you have to. Genki vocab and grammar got me through conversation practice with a friend from ch 3, seriously, it’s all relevant! If this (and some easy Japanese travel YouTube or the Satori travel dialogues close to the trip) is all you do, it would be a big win
Speak: Maybe consider a sub (or see if your library had it) to pimsleur or get a tutor to practice speaking. You need to be saying stuff out loud everyday till you go if you want to be able to say anything out loud while there. Pimsleur or a good tutor will help you practice what is most relevant to travel right away.
Input at your level: If you’re doing both of the above and still have time, get graded readers with audio. The ones from ASK publisher are expensive but very gentle in progression. You could start at level zero now and work your way up. Around level 1-2 and after finishing Genki 1 is the earliest I’d suggest trying Satori. Whatever you do: read, listen, shadow. This helps you see what you learn in other contexts and start saying what you know out loud
Slow down wk until you can accommodate those activities. Think about it this way - what will make you happier about your trip, reading with <50% comprehension or meeting lots of people who are super excited about your even most basic attempts to communicate? You can hold up your phone with Google translate to any sign or document if needed, but human communication is still best done without a smartphone in the way so focus on that.
If my goal was to be able to speak to people as fast as possible I’d:
- Immediately stop doing WK lessons and just continue with my reviews (or drop it all together for the time being). WK is there to teach you kanji, not vocab. The vocab isn’t sorted in order of usefulness.
- Concentrate on grammar and vocab with Genki.
- Get a tutor on https://www.italki.com and regularly practice conversation and ask any questions I have.
- Look for Japanese language meetups (e.g. via https://www.meetup.com) in my area or online like the VRC EN-JP LanguageExchange.
Personally I cannot get into podcasts, but as mentioned they are also a good method of getting listening practice.