"Speedrunning" WK

[Gaol]

I was planning to post an update in a month or two. But after less than a week, made a decent bit of progress and learned some interesting things maybe out or the usual order. So, thinking to do an occasional update here.

Background, I do have a few years experience as a [bad] student of Japanese, including some formal instruction up to maybe the beginning of N3, as well as over a year (with varying levels of diligence) doing RTK. But I’ve been basically zero Japanese for the last 3 years. So if I had to gauge my my current ability

Speaking: Basically N5

Listening/Reading: High N4/Low N3

Because I have a decent bit of experience is part of why I’m trying to rush WK, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend for everyone, but some things I would depending on a person’s goals, time available, and preferences. Note: I listen to audiobooks or shows or anime while doing the writing so my ears ain’t being lazy. Also, supplement with active watching/reading outside of this exercise.

The path:

At level 6, I decided to bite the bullet and skip ahead and learn all the WK radicals (491). Brute force method similar to learning Hiragana/Katakana. Over the course of about 2 weeks, wrote each radical 8-10 times each, going thru the whole list rather than hammering one at a time.

First few reps I wrote the english underneath, then just wrote the radicals themselves, taking note of which ones I remembered really well, which were close, which were problems. Each rep reduced total number of radicals as I “buried” the ones I could instantly recognize.

After about 2 weeks, I have all the radicals down reasonably well. It was very time-consuming and maybe not “efficient,” but I think it’s very doable. Each rep took 1-2 hours (including pauses and daydreaming). But was less than a dozen for me, may be more or less for others.

[Gaol]

so having the radicals down pretty good, I’ll occasionally look over one of my lists and make sure I remember the meanings. But I keep up with my WK reviews, so naturally getting tested on them that way anyway.

I’m 4-5 days in now moving onto Kanji from WK. I write 1-2 pages worth of kanji per day (minimum 1 page) with 140 per page. Goal isn’t to magically retain a new 140+ kanji per day, but to get exposure sooner. To save time, I just write the Kanji with the “main” reading given by WK. I skip writing the english because that would make things take even long. Goal is exposure for now.

Early Findings:

-Reinforces Radicals very strongly as you just encounter them like crazy.

-Find kanji that are parts of words already known from previous study, or from listening/reading practice. Very rewarding spotting these

-Encountering in close proximity Keisei Moji. Kanji whose reading is that of one of its components (ex. 方(ほう): 訪、放、坊 all ほう)

-Recognizing a lot more kanji a lot faster when reading manga or subtitles. Not yet reading them, or necessarily remember meanings. But makes looking up these otherwise random words feel less fuzzy

Writing these Kanji really etching radicals in stone right now. Suspect that after getting the kanji to an okay level, vocab will start to cement the kanji.

As of this post, I’m day 5 of writing kanji. 980 down.

Also, I am aware that this may not be efficient, but I’m enjoying this kind of grind. My grammar studys are lagging behind, but my hope is to have less friction when I start going ham on grammar.

[YandrosTheSane]

I mean I salute the effort but at this point why not directly expose yourself more thoroughly in jisho or jpdb or any other kanji app ? Seems a waste to wait for WK where the whole point is the pacing.

[Gaol]

I’ve tried RTK, KKLC (briefly) but the “openness” of them had me dropping them.

and I’ll use jisho and jpdb on occasion when I’m reading something or gotta look something up..maybe there’s some feature of them I’m missing?

I think the pacing of WK in the background I think just helps me mentally… like getting ahead on homework (just to an excessive extent). But also reviews in the coming months will help fill gaps that I might not know are forming.

At least that’s how I’m looking at it now. Like having a safety net. Whereas 100% self study just hasn’t worked for me in the past.

[YandrosTheSane]

@Gaol

I think the pacing of WK in the background I think just helps me mentally… like getting ahead on homework (just to an excessive extent). But also reviews in the coming months will help fill gaps that I might not know are forming.

That’s fair. Although bear in mind that the WK order is pretty arbitrary you won’t develop gaps by learning kanjis in another order.
For JPDB and jisho I was thinking about learning the unknown kanji you encounter in read text if you have the settings like

I do not bother with writing yet so i’m thinking it would get pretty easy for you to remember / learn the kanjis if you’ve already gone through that effort.

Since you have for the kanjis

Front

Back

You already did a good portion of the work within the “composed of”…

Anyways this was not a critique of your learning style, if it works for you go for it !

[Gaol]

Oh wow! Yeah I haven’t really messed around with jpdb too much, so didn’t know about that stuff. I just used it to get vocabs lists of stuff I wanna try reading. I’ll tinker about with it some more. Thanks!

Also, that’s a good point about the kanji order. Seeing them one after another I noticed that there’s definitely a couple different orderings I would prefer. I’m about halfway thru my first pass. But I’ll be sorting them into a different order for my second pass thru.

[Gaol]

Update:

Day 10 of writing down all of the Kanji in WaniKani once each. Just finished my first rep…2096 Kanji down on paper.

Result:

Next to no kanji totally learned. However there are various vocabulary/kanji I’d be able to guess the reading now because of the elements in them. (Like many kanji containing 反read as はん for example, which is neat)

Recognition of WK radicals is much quicker. Made writing the kanji faster and more enjoyable the further in I got.

That’s about it.

Next:

I do intend to do a few more passes. But for rep#2, I’ll be going through and reorganizing and grouping the kanji by reading. Rep#3, I plan to reorganize those groupings by elements/radicals. And for Rep#4, I may start throwing vocab in to cement the kanji…but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

Thoughts:

For those who are just starting and find the early levels to slow, even while doing grammar, reading, listening study. I do think throwing in the radicals and getting a head start on those is a pretty low pressure activity…especially if spaced out over weekd rather than days. And it lightens the load slightly when you do go up in level.

I’ve been listening to the same audiobook over and over (宮本武蔵01) when writing in the library, or listening to Terrace House while at home. The semi-active listening definitely breaks up the monotony of the grind a bit. And I do some reading from time to time.

For the most part, I’m relying on WK to give me a slow trickle of new vocab to learn while I continue this experiment. But occasionally I look stuff up from something I’m listening/reading/watching.

I still fight the “am I wasting my time” doubts. But I definitely recognize kanji way faster/better. While my grammar understanding may be moving slower than it could, I can’t imagine this activity is directly hindering my grammar ability. This is meant to be about a 2-3 month project at most. So hopefully whatever sticks, even if it’s not everything, will benefit grammar practice later.

anyway, still keepin’ on. Will probably report again in another week or 2.