It’s been a real adventure. I remember my attempts at learning Kanji before Wanikani - staring at the JLPT N5 Kanji List and writing them down for hours a day back when I was in middle school. Inevitably, nothing really stuck and I let myself believe that Kanji would always just be impossible given the sheer quantity and difficulty and found myself at peace with simply being able to read Kana.
Fast forward to College, I found myself post-finals in my room wanting to do something outside of my major and remembered my failed attempts at learning Kanji. This time I wanted to make a real commitment, so I began researching into different books and resources - ultimately, this is how I stumbled upon Wanikani.
At first, I found the pace extremely slow, but sure enough once I started speeding through I soon learned that language acquisition isn’t a race but rather a marathon! Having 200+ reviews a day was soul-destroying and missing days was simply not an option (unless I felt like tackling 400+ the following day!) So, combined with pressure from college and, after graduation, work, I decided to take the ‘scenic route’ and force myself to not study new flashcards before the reviews dropped to ~50 a day max and to also take breaks when real life got busy.
Although, my pace went down significantly, I found my recall of Kanji and Vocab to have gone up significantly and would really advocate for this approach to all the Wanikani speedrunners out there who feel overwhelmed by the reviews. Five years since first starting Wanikani, I’ve finally reached Level 60. From being completely unable to read anything besides Hiragana and Katakana, I find myself now able to understand and read entire articles and webpages. Furthermore, Wanikani made my first ever trip to Japan back in April 2024 go incredibly, allowing me to comprehend menus and documents. Looking to the future, I hope to take my first JLPT exam, the N2, this December.
I wish everyone who is still climbing their way up to Level 60 all the best! Never give up and endure even when things feel impossible - Kanji is a marathon not a race! (If you have any questions you would like to ask, then feel free to - I’ll do my best to answer )
One question… You’ve talked writing out the kanji before you found wanikani and that you found it ineffective. Did you ever try to learn to write the kanji while using wanikani or do you not find it valuable?
I’m asking this because I’m considering spending some time practicing writing to help distinguish similar items (未 末 etc) however I’m not sure if it is worth the effort.
That’s a good question. I didn’t and don’t practice handwriting Kanji anymore. This is mainly due to my use of Japanese being purely online and my primary need being to read and type Kanji. I’m aware that there is much benefit to be had in practicing handwriting Kanji but I didn’t feel like it enhanced my retention. For me, it is lower on my list of needs and is something I will come back to later in my Japanese learning journey.
Ultimately, my opinion is that, if you enjoy writing out Kanji and you feel it helps you differentiate between similar Kanji then please continue doing so! Everyones way of learning is different (十人十色）
ありがとうございます。Thanks very much for the answer. I think I am in the same position as you, as in I probably will not have much use for handwritten kanji, so it’s good to know you got to level 60 without needing the writing practice.
I can’t read my own English handwriting, and can’t even handwrite kana, much less kanji. I sure wish I could, though.
I’m 1000% convinced that learning to write kanji would help with recall and cementing characters in memory. It will definitely help you to recognize and focus on the constituent parts of a character (radicals and other kanji). This isn’t just useful for disambiguation, it’s also useful for guessing the meaning of characters you haven’t learned and getting a deeper understanding of ones you already have.
It would also be quite useful if you ever plan to live in Japan. I don’t live there currently, but it’s surprising how often I’m confronted with some sort of form to be filled out even when I visit (inevitably without nearly enough room for romaji).
It’s also useful when communicating with natives: when learning new words, or distinguishing from words you already know. You might be surprised at how often natives finger draw characters in the air when talking to each other!
I can state absolutely that learning to write is worthwhile. Whether or not it’s worth the effort is a harder question, but I wish I had done it when I was younger (and still might try at some point).
I think I’m taking more of a scenic stroll through wanikani now too! I work on wanikani on my spare time just for fun and I really love the lack of pressure. Really cool to see where I might be in another 5 years
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