Studying Kanji outside of WaniKani?

Japanese Language
#6

I really wish WaniKani had a “review but this won’t count toward learning” mode. I understand the concept of SRS and it’s usefulness, but it’s painful to only get a single review of 16 kana and then for my progress to be artificially slow because I can’t spend a bit more time on it. I like the great way I learned hirogana. Memomics from Togofu and then review a set of 5 or 10 characters. Review it until I know it (short term memory based) and then move on to the next set or stop for a few hours/whatever. When I come back, yea, I struggle but it’s stuck in my head much more than when I work with such a larger set of (more complex) kana 1 time per session. It might be cool if I knew I could dedicate 5-10 minutes out of every hour for reviews, but I can’t, so I like to cram learning in how as long as I have time. I realize that’s against the SRS method, but even with Wanikani reviews the word sometimes doesn’t even get into my short term memory and I fail a word multiple times in a single review. I’m always really iffy on the “right” entry but it doesn’t come up again until I have time for more Wanikani, which I’m almost 100% bound to fail the word when I review it again in a few hours.

Basically I wish WaniKani was more intense and allowed for some sort of infinite time mode for when I have extra time. Easy to break off 30 minutes 3 times a day for learning compared to 15 minutes 6 times a day.

#7

I know it may seem like a lot of extra work, but you can always review your critical condition items by clicking into the problem Kanji or Vocab and it will show you the pronunciation and all information from when it was first taught to you.

From there if you know you have some problem Kanji you can practice yourself in a notebook or on flashcards and add as you go on, crossing them out or removing them from what you review outside of WK as you become more consistent.

I definitely know the feeling of failing a word multiple times during a review, but it feels so much better when you review it later and get it on your first try because of all the mistakes.

2 Likes
#8

@earlz I can understand some of the frustration you are having. Seems like most of it is really with the SRS style of studying in itself. I will say, however that the first 3 levels of WaniKani are on the slow side. Once level 4 opens up the lessons increase in amount. Some levels are longer than others but the repetition will help down the line.

There are some scripts that you can add to your browser(?) I suck at explaining tech stuff that will allow you to do some self studying. There is a big list of those scripts and apps here The New Improved List of API and Third Party Apps. I hope that’s a little helpful. Wanikani is really helpful is given the chance so I hope you can make it work for you.

3 Likes
#9

Yes yes yes couldn’t agree more. Except somehow my WK system on level 5 has me on no reviews at all available until 5am then late at night – I’ll have maybe one to 5 to do during the day. Takes 3 minutes, usually get them wrong as I haven’t seen them in days, and then I have to wait 6 more hours before I can do a proper review session. Doing WK at times that it sets rather than times I can set is very weird. It would be nice to be able to say “I’m ready today now, this is my window today” and it gives me my reviews,

#10

Can’t you just wait for the reviews to collect and do them later?

1 Like
#11

I recommend reading the “4. Building your own schedule” section of this post: My Journey of 368 days (+ The Ultimate Guide for WK 📖 )

Basically, find two times during the day (or ideally three) to do your reviews, eg/ morning, lunchtime, evening. If you do that, all the reviews will naturally slot into that timing after a while.

6 Likes
#12

It will soon get so intense you‘ll wish you cherished the start more than you did now. Enjoy the moment of peace while it still lasts.

The tsunami will come.

7 Likes
#13

I make kanji cards still and carry them around with me to review. It’s in addition to Wanikani. Why not just do both and let them compliment each other?

3 Likes
#14

I’m going to try it out (and maybe a few cards or whatever on the side) until level 3 or 4, especially since I still have things to learn in parallel. I’m hoping the pace picks up a bit. At least I’m on kanji now though rather than just radicals like the first 3 days

#15

One thing I really wish WK had was the ability to review example sentences using kanji OUTSIDE of the lesson. In the initial lesson they let you see that, but then in review (by checking the kanji itself on the dashboard or in the review process) the tab showing example sentences is for whatever reason missing. I like the extra reading practice of (some) of the examples where I’m learning the kanji and the rest is hirogana

edit: Nevermind. Just found I had to click through a bit to get example vocab sentences

#16

I think the “build your own schedule” explains how to do that. When I’m awake and cogent I just always wanted to do the reviews that I could and it was only a couple. I think I have the advice needed now to improve the experience. Thanks!

#17

Dude I was right there with you. It was confusing at the start and mad frusturating. I JUST got to level 5 and had 172 reviews waiting for me… You’ll start wishing it was slowing down instead of speeding up.

#18

Are you, by any chance, doing those reviews at those odd hours? Because that’s the only reason the SRS would keep perpetuating that cycle.

If you skip them for half a day and do them at the hour you want, the next interval will be based on that hour.

#19

Well yes because I’m already several days behind my husband. But you are right, I have to do what you suggest because I’m falling further and further behind him since I am exhausted when doing reviews… :slight_smile:

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#20

That’s why I recommended to push through a few more levels. Level 4 is about the time when you actually feel like you want to slow down a bit. :wink:

Check out https://www.kaniwani.com/

I found it to be a good way to reinforce the learning and have something else to review when your WK items are done. Just don’t make the same mistake I did and start KaniWani at Level 5 with hundreds of Lessons and Reviews to slog through. :wink:

I also use https://bunpro.jp/ to review grammar.

All three of those can take up quite a lot of time and should keep you quite busy.

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#21

I’m definitely going to try out kaniwani, and bunpro looks interesting for when I get a bit of vocab under my belt.

I’ll just stick it out and attempt to achieve for 0/0 since that’s apparently a thing for later levels and hopefully that gets a bit more difficult

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#22

The “WaniKani is so slow” -> “Shit i quit because i burned out”-trap is real though :stuck_out_tongue:
If you do 20 lessons every day and do all your reviews every day, you’ll eventually end up doing over 200 items every day. More if your %'s are low. Miss a single day and it’s 400.
Don’t underestimate WaniKani. It’s not that easy, especially considering that by the time you start burning things (aka the highest workload), you should (already) be doing stuff like grammar outside of WaniKani.

8 Likes
#23

Yeah, I think Level 5 is the first time you start seeing kanji from Level 1 again, and if you miss a lot of those your reviews can really start to pile.

1 Like
#24

As a reference, I’m currently doing WK at a pace of 7 days per level, which is a few hours off of the fastest possible level time set by the SRS. On a regular day I usually have 150-200 reviews. On midpoint and level up days that number is usually closer to 300. If you stick it out a few levels, the pace really picks up.

That said, the wait time is sort of the point of an SRS learning platform, as that supposedly helps you make the biggest gains. If you really hate the wait time and would prefer to just study a few here and there when you have time, WK is likely not the right tool for you.

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#25

I’ve been sticking with it 2-3 times a day, and thanks to getting behind on a weekend trip where I just did reviews and no new lessons (and usually just 1 or 2 times a day), I now have more lessons than I can keep up with! I’m doing 2 lessons per day now and slowly cutting down on the queue while keeping reviews above 50%. I do want to learn some grammar sometime soon so I can figure out how to actually put some of this vocab to use, but I think I’ll wait a few weeks on that. I’m still not too fond of the radical lessons though. I can typically recognize kanji by sight and it’s remembering the (typically) weird reading of that kanji in the context of the vocab that is the hard part. Honestly see little point even in the kanji lessons beyond learning the meaning, as it seems like 90% of kanji are read differently in the context of vocab thus far… Maybe that will change though as I advance