Hello,
Sorry if this has already been asked, is there any way to get started with wanikani as an intermediate in Japanese? I studied for a few years at uni, and would love a way to learn a set number of new words and kanji a day, with the option of skipping what I remember already. I like the idea of the wanikani system, and don’t mind to pay, but from my cursory reading it seems I have to start from 0?
Thanks!
4 Likes
Unfortunately, they is no way to skip levels, so you’ll have to start from 0 if you want to go with WaniKani.
2 Likes
danm, Im sorry to hear that. 
1 Like
@qess2000: Welcome to the party! 
While I can definitely appreciate the reasoning of wanting to skip kanji you already know, since WaniKani is level-based I’m not sure that could work very well. At least, if that’s something they added, it would complicate things a bit as far as individual levels (you’d still need to learn all the other kanji for a given level to proceed to the next, regardless of any you already know). Though there are certainly some gaps, there’s a lot of interconnectivity/association with how things are organized. So it’s not so bad to have to review those you already know, especially since they will go very easily for you and be done before the others.
Also, for what it’s worth, trying to stick to a rigid schedule as far as learning (rather than just reviewing) a set number per day may lead to a bad time, as there’s no guarantee that you’ll nail everything on each review (misses are almost certain); and the harder you push, the more reviews will pile up quickly; all of which can cause more frustration than necessary. So while it may make some sense to push hard at the beginning, especially if you know a lot already, a more moderate, steady approach will likely serve you better in the long term. Cheers!
You might find this helpful for deciding whether or not to go with WaniKani, despite not being able to skip content.
3 Likes
Hi benty,
Thanks for the reply. It does make sense the way the system was designed, especially for new learners. It’s more the going through the first 600 kanji or so will probably take me quite a while on wanikani (I’m assuming). My fear is that the task will be demotivating after so many days with little progress (I had the same issue with duolingo), and no way to skip, I fear I will probably stop using it before I get to my level.
2 Likes
I was actually thinking of making a bot for skipping items you don’t want to review.
Basically it would just automatically submit the reviews for the items you want to skip as soon as they are available so that they don’t block your progress.
This won’t help if you want to skip whole levels though.
1 Like
Hello NeoArcturus,
Thanks for the reply. I have read it and I agree that if you can stick with the method, it can be a great ressource. The problem might be more with my commitment to follow a path laid out for a beginner, I would feel defeated to have to start over from 0. My hope was that wanikani could have a more fexible structure, or maybe a test where you could get to do a run through of the kanji, and see where your gaps are and go from there. I think the tool might just not me a good match for me, but thanks for helping out!
3 Likes
I’d say give it an honest chance first, but if you’re motivated enough to setup your own custom kanji deck in Anki or something with only those you do want to learn then it’s clear that would be the better fit and you can go with that instead.
Personally though, while I was not a beginner and had similar thoughts at first, it turned out the extra practice was not such a bad thing anyway, with not only kanji but also radicals and vocab as well. Your mileage, of course, may vary though!
4 Likes
As another person who started (or, rather, restarted, as I already reached level 30 in the past and then had a long hiatus) from a position of having 600+ kanji in the luggage, I’d say that despite having a much easier time with first levels, I still get words that I didn’t encounter before.
So even as a somewhat advanced level learner you might find wanikani helpful. I’d say give it about a month of maybe two? First 3 levels might be not exactly represantive for someone who’s not a complete beginner, while 1-2 months are both start picking up on how much info you go through without taking too much from you just yet both in terms of money and time.
3 Likes
Perhaps you would find it to look ahead for each one you already know?
For example, 山 is used for a radical, a kanji, and a vocab. You could look ahead and see 山 is a radical in 岡 and a kanji in 山賊. For the vocab you could look at the example sentences and see if you know the non-kanji words and grammar.
Won’t change that the reviews are mountain=mountain=mountain though.
1 Like
You can also use Anki. It’s far more flexible and it is similar to Wanikani. You can skip words, choose how many new words you want per day, and easily add your own vocabulary words. You can even have plugins to make it look and feel almost like Wanikani. There are a bunch of free decks with the two to ten thousand most common vocabulary words with audio and example sentences for each item. There’s even a deck which is an almost complete copy of Wanikani (I think it’s called Wanikani Ultimate v3 or something). It’s probably exactly what you’re looking for and it’s free. You do have to set it up and it’s less gamified. If you use the Wanikani deck and don’t mind paying you might want to have an active Wanikani subscription, just so that the content creators of Wanikani have some return of investment on the time spent building this website.
(I just noticed using Anki was already mentioned, oops. In any case, I think no one mentioned the Wanikani Anki deck so hopefully that contributes to the question at least a little bit.)
3 Likes