New People Questions! ~~~<3 [Lost?! Confused?! We're here to help!]

Well I’m trying to focus on Genki for this month, I’m on Lesson 2 at the moment trying to go over it because I feel like I forgot some of the basics, while learning Kanji last year that and being in school. I got like 500 reviews so I think doing at least 100 a day would be ok.

Yeah I think learning bit by bit is a good idea, I gotta strike a good balance while also immersing myself a bit more.

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ありがとうございます :smile:

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Hey, Ive got a small question. Well more like a problem, but:
Its been about more than a week that Ive been on level 3. Ive been doing my reviews on time ( twice everyday ), same with the lessons. Bought the subscription aswell. But even after the one week, one third or so of level 3 still remains for me to be unlocked through lessons.
I saw people completing levels in approx. 4-5 days, which is kinda impossible with the current speed my reviews appear.
I also noticed that compared to the first two levels, im getting about half less reviews now ( before it was about 80 reviews daily, now its max. 40 )
Is something wrong? Or am I just too much of an impatient and confused wanikani newbie? Its really fun and I want to spend atleast half an hour here daily, lol.
Apologies for my faulty english at places.

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I’m inclined to put you on the impatient side, but most of us were there so it’s not a criticism.

Content is blocked off because you haven’t gotten the related kanji or radicals to guru level yet

Yeah I get that, but how did people do these levels in 4 days? Has WK been updated since then?

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You have to do a LOT of review sessions, more than 2 a day.

Honestly, unless you have some reason to want to rush through WK, I’d really recommend trying to find a manageable pace so you don’t get too burned out.

I currently do 10 new lessons per day and maybe about 150 reviews over the day and that gets me a level up every 15-16 days (depending on my accuracy)

That’s a manageable speed for me but everyone is different.

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I believe it should take a minimum of seven days for most levels (those with radicals beyond the first couple). It is possible to finish the first two levels faster because the SRS timings are different. For other levels, though, you have

\text{Apprentice 1} \underbrace{\underbrace{\rightarrow}_{\text{4 hours}} \text{2} \underbrace{\rightarrow}_{\text{8 hours}} \text{3} \underbrace{\rightarrow}_{\text{1 day}} \text{4} \underbrace{\rightarrow}_{\text{2 days}}}_{\text{3 days, 12 hours}} \text{Guru 1}

that you have to do twice (once to unlock the kanji with prerequisite radicals and again to finish those kanji). If you don’t stay on top of the reviews, it can take longer, too.

Some levels with radicals have only a few and you don’t need to finish every kanji before leveling up, so it is possible to do them faster.

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I see. Not trying to rush through it, but you know :D, its fun. Also by two reviews i meant two review batches. Doing them on time nevertheless, but on average they appear in numbers of 3/ an hour.
Thank you though.

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yeah, that’s what I meant too :slight_smile:

I took a year off of WaniKani because I felt overwhelmed by the many reviews. When I started again, I realized that the App that allows you to go back and fix a wrong answer didn’t help me actually learn, so I restarted completely. I did visit Japan last year, so at least everything I learned wasn’t completely lost. I guess this wasn’t really a question I just wanted to share.

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Hi everyone! Hoping this is the right place to ask my question. Once upon a time I was able to use a userscript to order my reviews (radicals first, then kanji, then vocab). I know WaniKani was updated and this userscript no longer works, but does it have a replacement? I wasn’t able to find anything.

Not the biggest deal but I like having them organized in this way. Thanks in advance!

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Reorder Omega is the currently-active one, I think.

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Not Lost or Confused, however, I just reached level 3 and before I finish that, I need to make my mind up about whether to subscribe or not. I feel like I’m learning all the Kanji and Vocab fairly well so far, however, I still don’t feel like I’ve learned anything I could really take into a conversation with. I love that I can read the kanji i’ve learned and am getting better at knowing how to pronounce them. However, I still don’t know if WaniKani will get me to a point where I can conversate.

Will phrases come later? will I gain the intuition on how to combine Kanji so that I can create my own phrases? I guess what I am asking is, what can I expect if I continue? Or better yet, I don’t know if it’s possible to give hopeful milestones, such as “by level 10, you’ll be able to introduce yourself” by level 20 “you’ll be able to read signs in Japan” etc.

I am loving learning, but having just completed level two, I am not seeing the vision of what is to come I guess.

Thanks for any advice given!

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WK is a kanji learning tool first and foremostly, you’ll need to supplement it with grammar, speaking, reading, and listening studies to actually be able to use japanese.

It’s not a one stop shop for learning Japanese

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I personally am pretty new to learning Japanese, but this is what I’ve been told so far:

WaniKani is a great tool for learning kanji, but it definitely doesn’t teach the most useful vocabulary. The vocabulary is mainly there to make the kanji stick better due to reinforcing them again.

So, you shouldn’t use only WaniKani for your Japanese studies, but also some other sources like Anki for vocab (you can make your own vocab decks there or download one that has already been made) (also, you can use Anki for other things too, but as far as I know, it is mainly being used for vocab), Bunpro for vocab and grammar and Satori reader for grammar, vocab and reading practice.

You also might want to have a look at this list here.

Good luck with your studies :slight_smile:

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I’ve heard that. But at this point, I’m still not sure what I need to supplement it with.
So basically, WK will get me the knowledge needed to then take that and begin learning from other sources how to speak/read it? Is that a fair take on it?

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Thank you so much! I’ll for sure take a look at these lists. I’ve downloaded a couple decks to Anki, but I think it’s just way too early for me, either that, or I downloaded some advanced stuff. It’s still unfamiliar (which is to be expected at this point).

Really appreciate your thoughts on this and the resources provided!
Thanks!

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Satori reader is for intermediate level. Definitely not for beginners.

@Rand089 having a long time goal and a short time goal will help you choose the right resources. If it’s your first time learning a foreign language by yourself start with material for beginners, like Human Japanese/Genki 1/Japanese from Zero and such, there’s also Lingodeer.
If your goal is speaking try Pimsleur. All the links are in the resources list.

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No, not really.

You say you want to have conversations in Japanese, is that a priority? I’m asking because knowing what your goals are will affect what advice and resources will be suggested.

Kanji knowledge is obviously very important to Japanese but it won’t really help you speak and listen to Japanese, for example.

What you do need is some kind of grammar study, of which there is an abundance of (Genki, Minna No Nihongo, Tae Kim, it goes on) and also vocabularly. Textbooks usually offer some kind of vocab lists to learn but there’s plenty out of there in the forms of (anki, renshuu, kitsun, etc).

And then you supplement this learning with listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

If you want a more comprehensive list of resources, have a look here

EDIT: I forgot the mention that a mistake many people make is focusing too hard on WK and not on actually useful stuff. There’s arguments for going off and doing a good chunk of grammar study, then come back to WK in the future once you have some footing in basic grammar and have some vocab knowledge. Learning kanji in a vacuum is pretty tedious at the best of times.

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