Well, with WK you have to go through Kanji first anyway, so even though I always mark them as “correct”, about 50% of them remain in the memory by the “Guru” level without drilling, and the rest 50% are somewhat familiar (most often I remember the meaning of them, but not the reading), so should be no issues with the recognition.
Don’t listen to people shaming your learning approach.
It’s sad to see everyone jumping on the bandwagon accusing laziness. We are all here to learn. Let’s be encouraging to our fellow students.
I essentially do the exact same thing you’re describing. Your argument is valid. I’m afraid of cheating myself, so I have a separate SRS system that I add every word I encounter that I do not know. It has several thousand items. Someone might call me lazy but I don’t care. 
There is Japanese beyond WK.
If what you are doing works for you, keep doing it. <3
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The only thing I’d be worried about is being inefficient. Learning the vocabulary without properly understanding the meanings of the kanji is like learning the kanji by stroke order rather than breaking it down into radicals. These methods have been developed to make the process of learning quicker and more efficient.
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But this is the internet! We like judging people.
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Don’t listen to people shaming your learning approach.
That’s just the internet being internet
I have a separate SRS system that I add every word I encounter that I do not know
Could you share what do you use? I know about Anki, but maybe there are better things. I think Memrise could be pretty good.
I like to use Houhou for SRS because it already has extensive info on meanings and readings. It’s basically Jisho-SRS. There’s info on it around here. I don’t need to type anything into it besides changing kanji readings to kana readings for words that have really obscure kanji. Anki and memrise are good too!
Yeah the internet IS the internet, but we can still try to be more!
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Houhou looks great, too bad Windows only.
Hm, maybe I can port it to the web.
File → Save As
Not sure what do you mean.
The application mentioned above uses .NET Framework which is available only on Windows in its original form. There may be possibility of compiling it using Mono for Linux and Mac (or using Wine), but I like the web more.
Does nobody else use WK’s preferred readings to look up unknown words? For everything I’ve learned on WK it’s faster for me to recall the preferred reading than to recall a vocab term and remove the extra characters when looking up words.
I’ve managed to guess readings and meanings of unknown words thanks to the WK’s Kanji lessons. Going at it from a vocab only perspective seems kind of annoying.
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Reference to people misconceptions to how easy porting software is. The joke is, to port something, you just “file save as”.
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“Don’t listen to people shaming…” Has similar approach as OP so proceeds to shame the shamers
Just because you do it as well doesn’t make it better. Laziness was only one possible conjecture which was reasonable based on the whole “it’s too hard and frustrating so I cheat” reasoning. This is just like if you are just copying homework from an answer key and counting on retaining the knowledge that way. I’m pretty sure most people did not comment just to rag on someone, but to correct what they considered an errant method. All people sort of do what OP is doing. Deep down, knowing you did something wrong, but wanting to be right so you seek out people who will validate you. I’m guilty of it as well.
But whatever, if somehow, miraculously, this answer key copying method works, then great - it’s just not the reason WK is useful and the reasoning and methodology don’t point to success in the eyes of most who have done significant study.
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Well, for example, there is a kanji x which uses onyomi reading.
I need to answer it a few times correctly to get to Guru and unlock the vocab item, right?
Afterwards the vocab items unlock, and I get these items in SRS:
- x which uses kunyomi reading;
- x + y which uses onyuomi reading;
- x + something which uses exceptional reading;
- x + kana which uses kunyomi reading.
After I got to Guru, the Kanji will still appear on its own, too.
The question here: is the first, initial kanji learning so important in the lights of the above, when you will get to learn this kanji in multiple readings anyway?
Absolutely. It’s often the most common and will help you with vocab you see both inside and outside of WK. Also, kanji lessons and reviews (first one or two) are super hard for me, but vocab lessons are often really easy since I guru’d the kanji without override and can use the individual kanji, which I know well, to help remember vocab meaning.
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Always skip radicals. No reason to have them memorized. Skipping kanji though… thats ridic
Why don’t you just skip vocab too? You’ll finish WK even faster, and master the language in to time.
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Well, I wouldn’t completely agree. At least at first, it’s important for the kanji - that is, if you plan on using the WK method in the first place (and if you’re not, why not use a free app). Later on, admittedly, remembering radicals like “big bird” and “boob grave” aren’t useful unless you forget the parent kanji. So down the line, I’d say it’s fine to not care about the radicals or try to learn the real etymology behind them to help with unfamiliar kanji.
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Yea could just use that “every answer correct” script. Perhaps go even further to make a script that will start lessons and reviews automatically and use it for you so that you level up in 6 days 20 hours each time without a second wasted 
I’m not one to tell people how to use the site or that their methods are wrong. But, I do feel that skipping the radicals is failure to make use of a really powerful tool.
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