Study routine concerns

[Gaidheal]

I believe I was fairly clear that personal goals are personal.

[Exanimus]

I’ve kind of resigned myself to the fact that it’s gonna take years and years to attain any kind of fluency. Right now my main focus is wanikani only because it demands it, after that I’ll focus harder on other aspects. It does make class time a lot easier; my teacher is always impressed with my reading comprehension, even though I still lean on furigana a little bit.

[ccookf]

How are you liking Skritter and does it have any kind of WK specific integration? I actually like taking handwritten notes and practicing that is always a great way to stay on the subject without the extra mental fatigue. I’m just sick of wasting paper on it and my own attempts at making something like that have… hit some snags.

[colorandlight]

That’s the issue I have with writing, I can’t really find match my creativity with my language skills yet, so I feel like I’ve gotten more out of exercises and practice where I can see what mistakes I make.

[colorandlight]

I’d like to learn writing beyond kana someday, but I place it at the bottom rung of things I need to learn since the chances of me living in Japan long terms (ie more than for vacation or future research or whatever I try to do) are really low.

[VegasVed]

You were. And so was I.

[VegasVed]

I must admit WaniKani’s system is fantastic. It keeps you going and impresses the sensei’s

[VegasVed]

@ccookf, Skirtter is a service I would recommend, but it is important to keep a few things in mind before you go for it, if you do.

About Skritter

1. It’s expensive if you pay month-on-month ($14.99/month), but cheaper for longer term plans such as yearly ($8.33/month), or biennially ($7.50/month).

2. There are two versions:

• Skritter 1.0, AKA “Legacy”.
  In Browser, it works well, looks like it was made in the 90’s (in browser), and apparently has more settings. Because of the aesthetics, I do not use this version in browser.
  On Mobile, it is stable, and the writing is almost always a joy to do. This is the one I use on Android.

• Skritter 2.0 which is still in Beta.
  In browser, it looks much more modern and stable. I use this one in browser.
  On Mobile, looks more modern, but is not a great writing experience yet on Android as they are ironing out the bugs. I do not use this one on mobile.

• Skritter 2.0 is the default in browser, Skritter 1.0 is the default in Google Play, so the good news is that as long as you don’t actively choose to join the beta on Android, you will have the best experience you can get on both platforms by doing nothing

3.The best experience would be on a tablet with a pen (I use a passive stylus which works great, so you don’t need a fancy tablet).

4. It uses SRS

Wanikani Integration
There is no direct WaniKani integration. However, there are WaniKani lists on Skritter, which means you can study the WaniKani stuff at your own pace. What I do is load the Kanji list and the Vocab list separately (because it gives me more control) and then I can choose from which lists(s) it adds to my learning queue as I learn more words. I also exclude levels I have not reached in WK from learning. This is easy to do as you just need to uncheck the levels you don’t want, not individual Kanji and Vocab.

I hope this helps

[ccookf]

That was exactly was I was looking for. Thank you very much for the detailed explanation!

[Protonstorm]

Yeah absolutely, there’s no reason for you to prioritize writing at this point in time with your current goals for the language, so it’s perfectly fine to not focus on writing. In my case, I would like to be involved a lot more in direct communication with Japanese people in daily life and will likely live over here for an extended time at some point (right now I’m just studying abroad), so for me writing has a higher significance.

[cbaidon45]

Hi:

As far as i can tell based on my experience:

• WK does the job with kanjis, i’ve heard of some japanese not knowing the radicals or even some kanji :S so no need to be so picky.

-I like Satori Reader a lot too, its a great tool and helps great with wanikani.

-For vocabulary i tried KW for a while but too many sinonims and personally ended not liking it. They passed a link on another thread that reviews Genki vocabulary and looks and behaves a lot like WK. I wish it was minna no nihongo, since it makes more sense to have the grammar and vocabulary resources linked somehow.

• As an added bonus i have really heard a lot from teachers that reading helps reinforce a lot vocabulary and grammar since you have to know the words to understand and we can copy grammar structure from there. But i will try to level up until level 20 at least in WK to start reading as to try and not to stop too often because of kanji.

Cheers

[VegasVed]

@ccookf, out of curiosity, have you subscribed to Skritter?

[ccookf]

I’m a terrible person that hasn’t been studying Japanese and don’t want to allocate the time/energy to it for at least another few months. When I continue I will probably use Skritter instead of WK (not that I dislike WK, I just need something more flexible to fit where I’m at with my studies).

[Borx]

You’re alive!