Hello there. I just started WK ten days ago – just about to finish level 2 so really just starting here, but I live/work in Japan (100% japanese) and have no problem speaking with coworkers at all, even written communication is mostly OK as I can normally pick the correct kanjis when prompted from spelling, and there are great extensions like ten10 (ex rikaichan) for kanji lookup.
I’m looking at WK because as you might have guessed from how I finished above, I never really studied kanji… I did intensive lessons 10 years ago (~5 hours a day for a few months can do wonder, courtesy of the japanese government) so my grammar is mostly OK, have plenty of vocabulary from animes/LN etc but never took time to sit down and study kanjis, so while I can recognize many there are times I don’t have the reading and end up not recognizing the words etc etc. I see great value in finally sitting down and doing something like WK even at this point.
BUT.while there are a few good things I’m picking up, I’m going to know perfectly well 99% of the first 10 levels at least. This is so very boring and already painful. I understand not being able to skip things is one of the main points of WK but I honestly don’t see myself keeping it up long enough to get to the really interesting part. getting 5 variations of each number (一(kanji)、一(vocabulary)、一日、一つ、一月) is just downright torture. (oh and let me say the radical 一 being called ‘ground’ and not accepting ‘one’ for the very first lesson was a shock… I mean sure it’s used as ground for things like 土 but meh it’s still 一. Also not forgiving typos and silly mistakes (erm playing with weird fonts and 木 looked just like 水 out of context…) is also facepalming)
There’s also one point I haven’t seen reading on the forum a bit, is that mixing meaning and reading is really hard for me. I’ve often typed the reading by the time I notice I was asked the meaning, then have to delete it painfully and type again… Might get used to that later on (yes I’ve seen the bar changes color, my brain just doesn’t register that) but I’d much prefer to do a batch of all meanings then all readings or the other way around than random shuffle.
Anyway, enough grumbling and onto the main question: given the info above, should I continue?
I’m feeling that if I stick through it it will help me quite a lot with reading without cheats (and as bonus probably allow me to take N1 test and rake points for early permanent visa… currently would only be confident in taking N2), but not being able to skip things I know 100% is a real pain point and I also think I’d be better trying to pick up something like anki again.
OTOH sinking in money into WK would probably be a good motivational
I’m sure this has been asked a thousands time but what do y’all think?
Cheers!