Well, i understand how the SRS system works, how you gotta perceive the basics to construct the bigger meaning,
BUT ive studied japanese for 4 years already on a school(they use minna no nihongo) and ive covered the speech, reading, etc
ONE MORE BUT, the school “covers” the N4 and N5 kanji (And others, but with books, just those two) , however they dont focus on kanji.
So, this brings up my question: why cant we have an “evaluation” system, in the likes that you will have the usual lessons and reviews, but some “extra” for those who already have some knowledge of japanese, while ive just begun, the lessons are still too basic and too spaced out because aside from the designations given by WK, they are all well know by me.
Cheers
Edit: what i imagining is a secondary study system, with the WK method, not evaluation/progression, they should be independent.
Hello hello, welcome! I’ll assume that you know what radicals are, and that WaniKani uses them in the teaching of kanji.
WaniKani renames quite a number of radicals, and adds some unofficial radicals as well. This is all for their mnemonic system, which is WK’s main strength for most people.
The more out-there radical names and mnemonic stories help a lot of people remember kanji, the meaning, and reading. If you skip, a lot of this system of building radicals and mnemonic stories on top of each other is lost.
The WK mnemonics work quite well for many, but of course not for all. Currently there is no evaluation test that will progress people to higher levels while also keeping said system intact, unfortunately.
I was in the same spot as you; I had studied for 4 years in university, so I knew a lot of grammar. Yet I didn’t know which was the exact on’yomi or kun’yomi reading of many of the kanjis already studied and when to use it (for words first encountered). So wk taught me to differentiate from those two by getting a feel for them.
Also, wanikani doesn’t give you all of the N5 and N4 kanji from the beginning. It mixes a bit of the other levels (N3, N2, N1). Actually, a user has to reach level 16 to have 100% of N5 kanji, and by doing so she also covers 96% of N4 kanji, 50% of N3, 24% on N2, and 3% of N1.
Another positive thing that I found, in my case, was that a lot of the vocabulary I didn’t know or at least wasn’t used to reading it fast. By level 10, (the level I am right now in) I have studied a little bit over 850 vocab in wanikani.
I recommend you to try the first 3 levels and see if you want to continue after that. You can finish them in a week, I believe.
On wk stats you can find a list of all kanji on WK arranged by jlpt level, jouyou level and others. You could check and see how long it will take you see kanji you don’t know yet.
Though the first 15 levels or so are heavy on the N5-4 kanji, a lot of N3 and higher kanji are in there too. And the vocab are often of higher levels as well, so wven if you can read the kanji, you’re guaranteed to learn some new words associated with them.
I’m doing Minna no Nihongo as well, and depending how far you’ve gotten in the books, WaniKani has been a great companion. (If you want to focus on reading the kanji more, I would suggest crossing out all of the furigana: that on top of wk has really sped up my reading ability). I have worked through the first two books, doing most of that in a classroom. Right now I am doing two classes: one is at about chapter 47, the other at chapter 16 of the intermediate series. I can read most of the kanji, even if I don’t know all of the vocab, yet. But I know most of that I owe to WK. But I also started WK after I had only started learning Japanese for a month.
I understand how you perceived the post, but i wouldnt call it slow. Its perfectly ok and my learning of the WK method so far has been great. And yes, i read the FAQ.
But what im saying is that there should be a few “variables”, as said on the post, something Extra(not evaluated, but using the WK method), not necessarily on the usual reviews/lessons.
Is it clearer? I like the WK method so far, it complements really well with the lack on emphasis of kanji on my regular course.
Yep, thats the mindset i have so far, im really enjoying the WK method, thats what im hoping. As i said in another post, is that i was hoping of something extra Within the WK method, but not necessarily being evaluated.
If you go beyond level 3 and decide to sell your soul to the crabigstor be ready to not question its methods!
Joke aside, it could be there is not enough demand for people to “jump into a level” or that it creators want to sell a product that goes from 1 to 60 no exception.
Really, besides the RSR rules and no skipping levels, almost all other rules are for discussion given the many, many, many users scripts out there
This issue comes up pretty often. If someone proposed a workable solution, it might be implemented. But so far, nobody’s come up with anything even close to resolving all the problems with the idea.
I can see where you’re coming from, but I think you should just enjoy the free time while it lasts
If you decide to keep going with WK after the free levels your workload will rapidly increase. Right now, there’s no need for you to spend more time on WK, right? So just enjoy the fact that it hardly takes up any of your day.
I do hope it increases(i intend to continue) - Not only these four years of study, i also practice kendo and im scheduling a trip to japan in about 12-14 months, so i do want to improve on my kanji reading
Because that’s not how the system is set up. That is obviously going to mean that certain people will feel unnecessarily constrained by the system, but WK isn’t going to be the appropriate learning tool for everyone. The system is set up to teach people with no assumption of any prior kanji knowledge. Obviously, this will mean that if you do that the beginning might seem slow and boring.
It does. This isn’t meant to be a system where you can blow through it in a month or two. It starts out slow and will be build up as you go. Less than 4 hours is probably a highly premature point to make a call on the effectiveness of the system. Besides, the downtime gives you plenty of time to practice grammar or other activities to increase your Japanese language skills.
Don’t worry, it will if you go at a reasonable clip you could get extremely far through the levels by that point (technically you could finish if you go full speed).
You could get the Self-Study Script once you have a subscription and pick levels you haven’t unlocked yet, giving yourself extra practice while waiting for the new content to roll in, and giving yourself a quick ego boost on the early levels for acing every review.