I really have been thinking if i should write this celebration post. I’m brazilian and even though i am comfortable with my english understanding, it’s really difficult to write in this language.
I think wanikani helped me a lot with my english as well (a lot of the time my problem was to remember the english term or how to write it) and there is a lot i want to say about it, so i decided to take the challenge.
In general, wanikani was a big challenge for me, first because it’s really hard on its own, second because of the English barrier, and third because I needed to work on my awful typing technique. The fourth and last wanikani challenge for me is to write this post in english (broken language 片言 warning).
My Japanese language journey in (more or less) chronological order
I was born in the early 90s and I grew up watching anime, reading manga and playing japanese video games. However, it was only when I was a teenager that I had access to anime with Japanese audio.
Since then I had direct contact with the Japanese language a lot but to me it seemed like an impossible language to study.
In 2020 I saw one of my favourite streamers talk about how he was trying to learn japanese. He mentioned the ridiculously detailed tofugu’s guide and even made a stream doing a little of the first wanikani levels.
Given the circumstances of the time I had a lot of time by myself so I decided to take a try.
I was really amazed by the mnemonic technique. In about a week I was able to read hiragana and katakana characters, something that looks indecipherable since my infancy.
Despite the impact of the guide, it hadn’t crossed my mind to learn kanji yet for a few reasons. I wasn’t sure I could commit to a long journey and I was worried about wasting money on a subscription. I also didn’t believe that my knowledge was solid enough for this challenge.
Two years later, on September 13th, I finally created my wanikani account. I did only 5 lessons but I still felt I wasn’t ready for this and stopped completely.
A year later, on 21 september, i returned to wanikani this time for real. Since then I use this site every day.
In December 2023, I had already reached level 10, excited about having passed the pleasant levels, I committed to a lifetime subscription
The first 20 levels were really harsh for some reasons. First establishing a regular learning practice is difficult in itself. Getting used to it is the hardest part. Secondly, when I started there was no system for limiting lessons, what I will call the batch system.
In the first levels I did all the lessons as soon as they were available, something I see as a mistake today. There were days when I did 110 lessons, I don’t know how I survived that.
When the batch system was implemented in February 2024, I was about level 15 and I decided to go with the default limit number: three batches of 5 lessons a day. This really saved my wanikani run without changing my level pace.
In June 2024 (level 27) I had a burnout in wanikani. The batch system was crucial here too, I reduced the number of lessons to 5 so that I could keep doing them every day.
Somewhere in the death 死 levels, i started to use the auto-commit extension, which reduced the time I needed to spend on the site and and reduced the burden I needed to carry per day.
On the late paradise levels, I started to feel tired again. I never used the extra study lessons, because wanikani and my job make me type a lot every day, so to keep my level up pace I started to make revisions using the wkstats site.
In this last part after my lessons I go to the wkstats and revise every kanji I am currently studying on that level. Wkstats is really convenient because I had all the meaning and reading information in one place.
It took me around a year and nine months to reach level 60, considering that all this time I worked full time, it was quite a challenge. I’m still envious of those who can do it in a year, but, In the end, the important thing was that I achieved it regardless of how long it took me.
When my routine got into a pattern after the batch system, I realized that I spent at least 1 hour and a half a day to maintain wanikani, although it often exceeded two hours.
Some apps and other things that helped me
-Auto-commit: It would be impossible without it. There was no way I could have done it at the speed I did. It allowed me to go with my first intuition without fear of error, and that made things much faster. It also helped me a lot with Rendaku and transitive pairs, as it allowed me to try different combinations when I knew how to read the individual characters. Some may think this is cheating and maybe some kanji were not so well sedimented in my memory, but I don’t care, because I couldn’t do it otherwise.
-Wanikani level duration: it’s good to get an idea of the level up pace.
-Media context Sentences: GOAT. Really incredible extension, a lot of media examples. It really helps to start watching anime with Japanese subtitles. Even if I can’t understand everything because of how fast it goes, I often can grasp the general idea and I can recognize almost everything and know how it sounds.
-Advance context sentence 2: it’s really convenient to have the pronunciation of context phrases, even when you notice that sometimes it speaks the wrong reading. I REALLY recommend it.
-NHK easy practice: really nice to start to read in Japanese, it takes into consideration your lvl. I think it’s a great source of material in japanese.
-Wani kani pitch info: It helps to understand some nuances, but for me it stopped working after a moment.
-Transitive pairs (post): this was one of my biggest difficulties and this post helped me a lot to understand or at least guess the right meaning.
Next steps
I want to finish the second genki and start the quartet textbooks, I’m currently halfway through genki 2.
I want to play a game completely in japanese, this is my main motivation to keep studying right now.
I don’t know if i gonna burn all those turtles, but now that I spend less time in here, i don’t mind keeping doing my reviews for a little more.
If I can do it, you can too.
皆さん頑張て