I’m looking for some advice. I recently reached level 11. I use wanikani for vocab and kanji and genki for grammer. I’m half way through genki 1 and i was wondering maybe i should step away from wanikani a little and finish genki now that i know almost all the kanji for n5? Like still do my reviews but stop doing new lessons and catch up with grammar and try to make sentences with the kanji and the vocab i’ve learned? Because although i don’t feel overwhelmed, i feel like i can’t really use the majority of the kanji and vocab i’ve learned with wanikani in real life. Like i can read and understand them when i see them used, but if you tell me to translate a simple sentence from english to japanese i have difficulty doing it. Also do you recommend writing the kanji? Because i feel like it would help since the kanji are becoming more and more similar and complex now.
I think that it might be not a bad idea.
The important thing is to keep studying every day without getting overwhelmed.
So, if you feel like you need to slow down the learning pace or concentrate on other Japanese studies for a while – then this might be a wise thing to do. Because burnouts do happen and while it’s important to recover from them, it’s also important to try to prevent them.
As for writing the kanji – it certainly has some advantages, although if you really don’t want to do this – you can instead just make your mnemonics and memorize them.
As someone who has been overwhelmed by kanji and who has reset my level back to 10 many times…
If I could do it over, I wouldn’t step away from kanji completely (as I’ve done too many times), but you can turn down the heat. Learn new ones at a slower pace. Focus more on the reviews and retaining what you know, but I wouldn’t come to a complete standstill. Maybe learn 1 new kanji a week or so, if that’s all you feel you can do, while prioritizing other things. Or focus on learning new words using the kanji you already know. Just some ideas.
I highly recommend learning to write the kanji! I think it helps your brain remember better, and it develops your literacy skills. I do think it helps you remember the parts of the kanji and there is a certain pattern to how they are written.
I used to have a notebook where I practiced writing my new vocabulary words in kanji (regardless of whether I had learned the kanji yet or not). Once you’ve written enough kanji it becomes easier to guess how to write ones you are not familiar with, and you’ll be pretty close most of the time.
I wouldn’t step away from WaniKani. By all means, practice making sentences, but I find that it’s usually much harder to get back into learning something than to keep going, even if it’s at a lighter pace.
Welcome! Especially at the start of my journey I did some things in spurts, and yes, finishing Genki means you can get into reading simple things like graded readers or trying Satori Reader, and then once you’re reading regularly it’s easier (at least it was for me) to learn more kanji. Great idea to keep up the habit with your reviews
I’d highly recommend maintaining the WaniKani discipline, even if you’re doing just 1 lesson per day.
A cautionary tale: I was at level 28 in 2022, had passed the JLPT N5 in 2021, and then put WaniKani on vacation mode “for a month”. Didn’t touch it till I restarted from level 1 in January 2026.
Not everyone is as bad at returning to their habits as me, but thought I’d just add my 2 cents.
Speaking as someone who knew about WaniKani, but refused to commit to it immediately, starting a few years later after deciding to sink time into it… (yes I ignored the ultimate guide)
It’s ok to stop WaniKani for a while if it takes too much focus, when you have continue SRS for the sake of review backlog. Restart at a set time, 1 year later same month same date, if you still feel hindered by vocab or Kanji then. Leave some room in case it’s not a real issue.
Don’t worry about already-paid lifetime price. The real return is on whether you will progress.
Also, it’s ok to have 1-2 year pre-WK + 2 years with WK, versus 3-4 years of WK. They are practically equivalent.
I think you should indeed take writing Kanji into consideration, as it helps with concentration on visual small bits, rather than passing by quickly as flash visual memory.
Writing totally from memory and choosing a correct Kanji are more troublesome memorization tasks, however.
My advice: Don’t stop, go slower. Practice recall. Are you using iOS or android? There’s an app called Kakehashi, use it to study context sentences and kana to kanji, use it to practice recall, that is to write the kanji, preferably use the Japanese input where you have to write the Kanji, rather than using the keyboard. Ringotan would be good too.
I’m level 9 Wanikani but actually can recognize Kanji around level N2. Although I can recognize a lot of Kanji and meanings, I can’t write it on the fly so I using Wanikani plus Kakehashi to do so.
Keep in mind that WaniKani doesn’t have English to Kanji which is another useful skill. The app Kakehashi does have it. Another app could be KameSame.
If you decide to stop but end up leaning a lot of kanji on your own, you can always go faster afterwards. The trick is to do all Radicals and Kanji, leave the vocabulary for later, with the setting lesson picker. You can level up in around 9 days. Don’t worry about being slower, you can always later speed up. Though, I think as a beginner, consistency is key.
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This is another app good for learning in context: https://bunbun-jp.app/
You’re at the chicken or egg stage and probably just need a lot more comprehensible input. I agree with stopping or slowing down the lessons for now. Try to focus on getting more exposure to Japanese without English being in easy reach. If you do something like one of the Terrace House seasons on Netflix with Japanese subtitles, most of those kanji are going to be the ones you learned in the first 10 WK levels, and it should be pretty comprehensible at N5 level, other than the parts with the commentators.
Just to add another voice, I think around level 10 or so is definitely a really good time to examine your study resources and remember why it is you’re learning the language in the first place. I think genki + wanikani is a solid start for learning kanji and some basic vocabulary, plus some grammar, but those are really the building blocks (beside the hiragana/katakana) to help get a foundation to continue learning the things you want to, whether that means watching content or reading or learning conversational Japanese.
With that said, the right plan is going to be whatever helps you stay active and accomplish what you want to. Not knowing your specific situation, I just noticed around the mid-teen level that I was spending a lot of time on lessons/reviews daily here and in Marumori (grammar and vocab) and kept “not getting around” to listening / reading, which I realized were important to me. So I decided to back down the lesson count here and definitely feel better for it.
Whether it’s right for you to stop new lessons or just minimize them will have to be up to you, but I think trying to keep the reviews manageable and keep making progress toward your overall goals should be the main focus. Steps sideways or back are sometimes necessary for repositioning purposes; you’ve only failed if you give up.
The gap you’re hitting is super normal at your level — WK trains recognition (JP → EN) but producing Japanese requires the reverse, and nothing here really builds that
muscle. Agree with everyone saying slow down rather than stop.
For the production side, try taking sentences from Genki and covering the Japanese — then reconstruct them from the English. It’s hard at first but it’s the fastest
way to make vocab “stick” for output, not just recognition.
