So I decided to turn the kana back on while using Toriiā¦ for now. Iām just finding that being focused on 2 different SRS systems that are teaching me different things in the same way makes it hard to remember the Torii stuff because thatās secondary. Iāve only done 20 lessons so far and Iām struggling with the reviews, so having the kana above the kanji is at least exposing me throughoutā¦ I could feel differently and turn it back on soon, but Iāll see how my retention is like this first!
Understandable. In the end, youāll still end up knowing the words, youāll just have to associate the kanji with them later (which will happen anyway - thereās a good chance youāre going to run into things like č²“ę¹ at some point, which you know but maybe havenāt seen written like that).
And youāll still have some of the recognition, because you still do see them kanji and all. Itās just not going to be as thorough as when hiding the furigana.
I completely agree and see your point. I think I just need to do the reviews more - Iāve kind of been forgetting about Torii since I started using it, but Iāll get in the habit. So many changes to my studying over the past few days Iām a little overwhelmed
PS. When would you recommend doing more lessons on Torii? When I start getting them to amateur? (assuming that is equivalent to guru)
I didnāt have much of a schedule in it honestly, I just did 50 lessons a day until the reviews became too much, then I laid off it for a while, forgot about Torii, came back to 700+ reviews, raced someone else on the forum with a similar number to 0 (I won by a few seconds, didnāt take nearly as long as you might think), then did some more lessonsā¦
My study schedule boils down to āwhat even is a scheduleā
HAHA thatās awesome! Well, Iām going to get these first few down and then see how many lessons I feel comfortable adding. A couple Iāve gotten I already know from WK.
And yes, I would like to get to the point of āwhat even is a scheduleā too! Weāll see if / when that happens
May I advise āhella unmanaged ADHDā? Works wonders. You might drop Japanese altogether for about 12 years though
If you can stick to a schedule without stressing yourself out, thatās honestly a lot better. Iāve been level 17 for three months now with no sign of leveling up anytime soon and this is staring me in the face when I go to my dashboardā¦
I recommend something halfway resembling a schedule, or at least a routine
EEK! Well, I think part of my problem is I need to stop worshiping WK as the benchmark in which I measure my progress. A lot of things will be teaching me, and although the fear of reviews piling up is there, I think if I just use what time I have to do them when they come up I may not stress as much.
I keep reading people saying you always want your apprentice pile around 100 or less, and I just donāt know if Iāll be able to do that in the endā¦ should I fear this as much as people say?
PS. at least you are already someone who has a vast knowledge of the Japanese language! I feel like you can kind of āmehā some things.
Iām flattered, reallyā¦ but no, not by a long shot Iām still at the beginning of this journey, honestly. When i say you get a surprisingly long way with that basic foundation, I mean it - youāll get to my level (not just WK level, but overall Japanese) a lot faster than you think and the mask will come falling off and youāll realise I was a noob the whole time
Itās a guideline. Do whatās manageable for you - 100 apprentice items is a good starting point for a balance between speed and pacing, but if you find thatās too much, stick to 80. Or 50. Or if you find you have a lot of time you could be spending on WK, up it to 150. Everybodyās different.
Your apprentice count is a good indicator for your pacing though, and 100 items is a number that seems to work in general.
Please do. WK and WK levels just donāt mean anything than time spent on this platform at the end of the day. Itās way too common to see users who reach the end and say things like āI want to reset and learn everything Iāve forgottenā or āI will go learn grammar because I struggle to read anything.ā
Yes and no. Itās a basically a metric for items you are learning which take up the bulk of review sessions and effort imo. If itās too high youāre basically cramming with all of the pitfalls that come with it, but WK is more of a long haul study program so itās a really bad idea to sustain a high apprentice count.
Also, the number is kind of arbitrary and just a popular pick in the community. You may need to adjust it for your needs. For example people who fast level will have 80 items in apprentice as a minimum. The 100 item limit wonāt give enough wiggle room for bad days, leech waves, or even just a tough level. I also think itās a bit worse in the beginning (<= level 13) where there are a lot of radicals that inflate the numbers.
Eh, Iād rate you higher. Not really a huge fan of the eternal beginner mindset in this context. Compared to the usual crowd working through Genki I and not really trying to consume native media Iād say youāre in a great spot.
HAHAHA yamitenshi = not noob! Did you have a Japanese foundation before you started WK? Or do you have this much knowledge at level 17? I would say that you must be a natural intellectual just based on your help and our conversations!!!
GOOD TO HEAR THIS! oh my goodness. I do have the time, I feel, to manage more than 100, but once I kept reading that 100 benchmark I felt I had to live up to it somehowā¦ I need to STOP comparing myself to others (something I have a problem with in general).
Yes Iāve noticed, at my levels, approximately 115 new lessons are given each level. Assuming you blast through the radicals, that could balance your leeches. Iām trigger happy sometimes (meaning I think I know something so well and hyper-type it into the answer, only to get it wrong and leech it!
OMGOODNESS - this is so good to hear!!! Iāve always respected those who reset after 60 - thatās humility in this journey if Iāve ever seen it. I think Iāll just turn my level badge off so I donāt feel like others are judging me. Is there really any reason to keep it on other than pride?
I see, I see. I donāt want to ācramā too much to the point where I canāt retain what will keep me learning. I guess, at level 7, I just still have a lot of feeling out to doā¦
I see about the radicals, and I agree with @yamitenshi that if I have enough time, I can allow the 100 mark to be higher than people say. Iām not going to worry myself so much about this now, especially, as you call them, leech waves are definitely inevitable!
Thank you ccookf!!!
Anyone who is judging over WK level is being a huge di- I mean, uh, bad person. Everyone had to start from level 1 in the beginning regardless of their Japanese knowledge.
I think itās fine either way if you want to leave it on or off. For some people itās a reward to see the numbers go up over time, something like proof of our efforts. Others might use it to follow each otherās progress (eg. Tokyo Skytree thread).
Yeah when it comes to perspective on Wanikani, I kinda see it like this ā people downplay the vocab you learn here for a good reason, but still, more words are more words and a basic familiarity with the ones here isnāt nothing. That aside though, kanji itself isā¦ both completely necessary but also sorta the least important part of your Japanese learning, at least in the earlier stages. Want to get better at the spoken side of the language? Kanji literally doesnāt exist. And when it comes to reading, since furigana is a thing, kanji can also be pushed off to the future because, while they donāt match up perfectly, there is a sort of correlation between a textās difficulty and if it will have furigana. Kanji is such a large undertaking Iād advise learning it from the beginning, but as a sort of side project to everything else, unless you plan to really speed into materials without it. Itās a sort of wall to particular material (and granted, that material is likeā¦ pretty much any piece of writing made for adults, haha) but almost entirely irrelevant to your abilities when you arenāt trying to get into that material.
I recall feeling the same way as you when I joined the forums when it comes to levelsā¦ and Iāve seen enough level 60 people talking about how theyāre going to start trying to learn the grammar I did in month 2 or struggling to get into low level reading that Iāve learned to disregard level, heh. Not that I mean any disrespect to them or smugness on my own part; WK takes up a big chunk of of time and all of this is tough. Just, you canāt assume level means much. Plus you have the people who just use the community and might be extremely good at the language while sitting between level 1-3.
so true, I donāt know why I think things like this. In graduate school I was too afraid to ask questions in class because I didnāt want to be judgedā¦ probably trauma from my sorted high school days
Yes I like the reward part. I will consider this as a statement to myself, not to others! And yes, I have connected with a bunch of you all and would like you to be able to see how I progress, at least in the WK way!
Agreed! I have already encountered some crossover with Torii, so I know WK at least cares about common vocab.
HAHAHA whaaaaaa? Is that an onā vs. kunā kind of thing or something else??
This makes sense, and is really the only reason I can roughly understand whatās going on in ćć¤ć°ćØ! - I use ichi.moe first to see if I can get the meaning of a bubble, and if Iām really confused I use the vol. 1 grammar guide!
I need to STOP SPEEDING - like seriously, itās a bad habit. I would like to learn randomly as stuff comes up in WK or Torii or Yotsubato! or my verbs book or Cure Dolly or my particles book, etc. Itās like mixing ingredients in a bowlā¦
Oh yes Iāve seen the low level ādurtlesā - odd choice by WK to actually allow that kind of thing IMO, because it just encourages personal forum pride vs. āhey, you can ask me a legit Japanese language questionā type of assistance. Anyway I know level doesnāt mean much, so I should stop caring so much how fast I can progress. This is all such a learning experience before the learning experience kind of thing! Thank you Daisoujou!!!
Oh, no, no! All I meant by that part is that since kanji is totally a writing system, there is an entire half to Japanese (speaking and listening) in which it plays absolutely zero part. Since theyāre all sound only. Kind of a self-evident statement but because kanji is so totally unlike what weāre used to as English speakers, sometimes people really fixate on it alone, so itās worth keeping it in perspective like that.
Ah I see. Is this why thereās no āaudioā in the Kanji (onāyomi) but always audio in the vocab? I could be way off on thisā¦
Well, that part comes from how kanji arenāt necessarily words on their own (except for the times a single kanji IS a word as well). I think what Iām saying is so simple and kind of silly that youāre overthinking it because youāre expecting it to be more meaningful, but all I meant was, like, kanji doesnāt float out of a Japanese personās mouth when they talk, haha. You shouldnāt try, but theoretically, you could be 100% fluent in speaking and understanding the sounds of Japanese but know 0 kanji.
Definitely agree with this. I think itās more useful to be realistic and balance oneās learning ādietā. In the end WaniKani is just a tool and not the only one on the path to ę„ę¬čŖäøę .
From a broader, more meta perspective, I think it probably pays off more to work with native material more often and use Anki or something for SRSing vocab, rather than slamming kanji. After using WaniKani for nearly a year I have to say the kanji reviews eventually become a pain, because you have out-of-context characters and youāre supposed to assign that one word (which often doesnāt even work for a kanji) as an English meaning. For native understanding, thatās not helpful.
ādietā I LIKE THAT!
Ugh you are now causing me to question Torii once again. I just canāt get going with Ankiā¦ Iām also afraid I will only type in the onā or kunā reading and miss something in my flashcard process. Thatās why I liked Koohi but it just seemed to be broken and not work for reviews in the endā¦ am I wrong perhaps?