Oh boy, I never really thought about what it’d be like to write one of these when I started, hell the category for these types of posts didn’t seem to exist till late 2017! And I didn’t join the WK community until a month or two into me using WK.
The point where I got it together and finally locked in was the summer I graduated high school, around level 23 
I will post my cake picture later, but cheesecake is in my future!
Why did I start learning Japanese?
Like many others, I had a love for anime, games, and songs from Japan, since I was a kid, and I frequently consumed content by myself or with my mom who got me into those hobbies and wanted to go herself. Despite all that, I also really wanted to learn more about the culture and to be able to use the language to meet new people, and to help translate for those who don’t speak the language. I always appreciated translators, because without them, half of the stuff I enjoy and the hobbies I have wouldn’t exist, and I’d be VERY bored
I really hope to study abroad and maybe work in Japan one day, whether in my intended field of IT or as a teacher, because I do like educating and helping people, and I want to teach people language in a way where they’ll actually use it and enjoy it, not just cram textbooks.
I’m just checking out learning tools. Should I use Wanikani?
Well, considering this is how I learned 2064 kanji (Guru+ items, according to wkstats), I’d be pretty confident in recommending it. However, I will acknowledge the pros and cons I experienced with WK, and how other tools might compare.
Pros
- Mnemonics: I know there have been some who complain about them, or say they’re too weird, but I feel like that’s the entire point of mnemonics. They’re meant to stick in your head, and there were certain ones I’ll never forget or felt it significantly helped me. If you really don’t like the mnemonic, write your own! I did that for a few kanji/vocab. I just like having provided mnemonics was way easier for me than making my own
- SRS System: This is not specific to Wanikani, as plenty of Japanese learning systems use it, especially free ones like Anki. But Anki stressed me out with how I needed to determine how well I remembered a word. I get why many like it, and it has it’s benefits. But WK just requires me to type what I think is the answer, and let the robot check if I actually knew it or not. Also knowing the exact times I needed to review and do lessons made the goal more achievable, I had a solid routine the past 7 months.
- Order of content: I didn’t keep track too hard of the content, but other than a few hiccups, most of the time I felt the content was ordered in a sensible way and taught you kanji in order of appearance
- Overall WK did the job of teaching me kanji and their readings very well
Cons
- Needing scripts: I’ll go into detail more about the scripts I used, but a redo button and a leech feature are absolute musts and I literally wouldn’t have made it this fast without them.
- Overall review info: This was one of my earliest learning sources, and when I started there was a lot I wish I knew to make reviews more painless. Emphasizing transitive vs. intransitive is a major one, I fucked up transitivity pairs like crazy and had no idea what they were talking about. Sentences need a rework, beginners aren’t going to be able to read much anyway, yes, but I never bothered to check them after the first 10 levels or so because they’re far too hard and not n+1 type content. Maybe do one easy sentence, one hard sentence, and one silly sentence?
- Lack of noticeable updates/features: This is the big one, and it relates to my scripts issue. Other than the major radical rework years ago, forgiveness checks in reviews for some items, and updating the UI, not much has changed, in fact, some things got worse. The missing summary page and poor communication about it will forever be a mystery to me. I’m not sure why it was removed, and I ended up replacing it with the revival script anyway. The recent mistakes page doesn’t count, as I don’t get to see how I actually did in my overall review. Other projects like Marumori are more open with users, have a roadmap, are still updating, and have intergration with other tools, including WK.
Verdict:
I mean, I used it, and you can see I stuck with it even after 7 years ($200 is too heavy of an investment to quit!). But Marumori might be a promising alternative. It’s still being updated, and doesn’t do just Kanji, but grammar, and general vocab too. As of now, they have content covering JLPT 4 and most of JLPT 3 content is finished, it plans to go up to JLPT N2 by the end of the year, it has minigames, official mobile app is currently in beta, it has mock JLPT exams, extra training tools, vocab decks from JPDB, will have sentence mining tools, and so much more! They even take feedback on these forums and have a yearly sale too. So, if you want just kanji, maybe do WK for a cheaper price (remember, end of year sale!). But this place hasn’t changed much over the years. The forums are great though, and they’re free!
What’s next?
- I definitely plan to finish Genki II (Chapter and a half left), and I already have Quartet books I and II in my room, so I will be doing those once my schedule clears up a bit
- More listening practice, cause I’ve neglected it a lot and I’m embarassed when my mom and I try to watch Japanese YT videos with no Japanese captions…
- Working up the courage to do speaking practice, I haven’t spoken in Japanese since I finished Japanese 3 two years ago
. I had HelloTalk, but I get too shy… - More reading! The beginner book club was fun even if I stopped midway, and I also have games like 逆転裁判 to finish! This is my most exciting thing! I can read (slowly!) now!
- Study abroad? I’m checking out opportunities at my college, and they definitely go to Japan, but I gotta get a real plan down, hopefully by Junior year summer
You mentioned scripts earlier. What did you use?
I will admit, I definitely had some that weren’t necessary or served little purpose, but others were life savers and made my ~30 level dash more bearable.
- Wanikani Open Framework - All of the scripts below depend on it in some way
- Wanikani Open Framework Additional Filters - Also nice for some of these scripts, not all need this one
- Smoldering Durtles (Android)/Tsurukame (iOS): Not userscripts for websites, but full on apps! I used both actually, since I switched from iPhone to Android last summer, and they’re great! Use them if you have to do reviews on the go! They have a lot of features natively in them.
The Absolute Must Haves
- Wanikani Double-Check: Say what you want about cheating, but being punished when you knew the answer, but not how WK wanted it, or because you mistypo’d is gut wrenching, especially on those master → enlightened and enlightened → burn reviews where you subjected yourself to more months of waiting. Shouldn’t have to be a script, and it’s an ages old argument I guess. Hell, sometimes I used it to mark myself wrong when WK said I was close enough!
- Wanikani Item Inspector (for leeches): Unfortunately, I didn’t get my hands on this one until I was deep into WK, around the 40s. I really needed this, because my 47 reading streak (I’ve never gotten it wrong!) yet peak 6 meaning streak for level 8 向こう shows I do need it. I almost want to throw up when I see these vocab items in review, because I know I’m practically guaranteed to fail them, even if they are at enlightenment. My oldest term that hasn’t been burned is 日の出 from level 3…
The Really Good Ones
- Confusion Guesser - Not something I’d expect WK to implement, but very helpful nonetheless and ties into leeches. Good for making those quick realizations and corrections in the middle of a review, because it guesses what you thought the answer was based on what you typed. Maybe you won’t mix up similar looking kanji like 概 and 慨 anymore!
- Niai Visually Similar Kanji & Keisei Semantic-Phonetic Composition: Together, these are fantastic at once again noticing patterns and reducing leeches. The visually similar comparison is obvious, but the phonetic one can help learners of all stages, as you can recognize reading patterns for kanji depending on the radical. Hell, even Wanikani tries to inform users of this info on several kanji, like any kanji that has the “lifeguard” radical (購, 溝, 講, 構)
- Reorder Omega: Lifesaver in the last few months of me reviewing, especially when I had limited time between getting ready for class and in between classes. You can pick from presets, and I often used speed demon (does current level radicals and kanji) or the SRS mode when trying to only review content that I just learned in a lesson. Has other useful modes, check it out! Don’t abuse it too much though, I always made sure to do all my vocab lessons, because I wanted that sweet 0/0 per level! Vocab helps you remember the readings!
- Wanikani Self-Study Quiz: I’m pretty sure this is needed for the leech quiz (Item Inspector) script listed above, but even if not, it’s still good for that extra little review. I liked to use this when I needed an extra little mini-review halfway between my initial lesson and first review for new radicals and kanji.
- Summary Page - Revival: You’ll never know what they took from you
Kidding, but it’s nice to get a general review of how you did for readings, meanings, and both! Also shows accuracy history throughout the session, and over the course of several sessions.
Neat, But Not Necessary
- Jitai: I absolutely loved this one, just because it kinda got me to slow down a bit on my reviews and actually read the kanji, rather than just look at the general pattern (cause then I get all surprise Pikachu face when I mess up visually similar ones ). Also good for getting you more used to reading different fonts, especially if you want to play games with weirder fonts or struggle to read fancy panels in manga
- Burn Bell - It’s so satisfying when you get them in a row
What has been your journey so far?
This is super long lol!
Well, I started learning online and teaching myself back in 2017-2018, around middle school. I started with the cursed dead green bird app (wow, I really did take a long time huh) and some random stuff like Drops, EggBun (pretty sure this is dead now), Memrise, LingoDeer, Bunpo, countless others. These are really only good for the intial beginner phase, where you need to keep your motivation up and learn the absolute basics. Honestly, let go of these pretty soon, or only use them as vocab supplements alongside actual resources, because you will never be fluent or even reach a decent level just using these apps. A lot of it is gamified learning, which is great for streaks, but not for serious progress.
Around the same time, I used Youtube videos to learn grammar, and honestly, Japanese Ammo with Misa Sensei had me set for so much beginner grammar, that I was already ahead in my high school Japanese class because of the slow pace we went at. I learned about her later, but Cure Dolly is great too and provides some mind breaking examples that can make concepts really click in your head. I do occasionally watch TokiniAndy’s videos of him going through Genki I and II, and I know he has Quartet videos too. These are my biggest recommendations for early/intermediate grammar, as that’s where I’m at right now, and I used them!
As I’ve mentioned, I did take Japanese in high school, for 3 years, and it had it’s pros and cons. The pace could’ve been faster (learn hiragana for a year, then katakana for a year?!?!?), but it’s where I got almost all of my speaking and writing (output) practice, and I really need it back. It’s nice being in a structured environment too, where you don’t have to depend on yourself and whatever you can find to learn. If you have local classes near you, take it!
I got more into reading and consuming native content within the past year or so, and it’s been minor, but I started doing sentence mining with anime I watch, and making anki cards from games I play, which has been great for vocab discovery and grammar practice. However you decide to do this is up to you, but once you get your media, just consume it. I’d recommend getting to level 20-30 and N5 grammer first and then immersing in native content, cause that foundational knowledge will make it less frustrating. When I decide whether to make a card or not, I do this:
- Is the word already taught on WaniKani and will I learn it very soon?
- Is the word frequently used, according to Jisho/Yomitan tags/[Insert Popular Japanese Dictionary]?
- Does the word have enough general use, or use for my purposes? (For example, I need to know slightly uncommon law terms to read Ace Attorney dialogue)
- Do I already have another Anki vocab list with this word in it?
If you’re going to be sentence mining, TheMoeWay (great site in general) has a guide for setting up Yomitan (the replacement for Yomichan!, Available on Firefox (mobile too), Chromium (Chrome), and Edge) which allows you to look up Japanese words in your browser, and make flashcards to anki with a few clicks using JP Mining Note! Both Xelieu and Arbyste have guides, but maybe Xelieu’s is better? Both have been updated within the past few months. Dear Windows users, as a current Fedora Linux user, nothing will ever beat ShareX’s usefulness in sentence mining VNs, and I sorely miss it. Enjoy it.
If you need subtitles for the stuff you watch, get your hands on anime or live action subtitle files from Jimaku and use asbplayer to inject whatever content you’re currently watching with clickable/Yomitan scannable subtitles. I did this last year when I watched Himouto! Umaru-chan on ahem… websites.
Final Words
I don’t know exactly how much time I’ve poured into learning this language, and I’m a little too lazy to do that right now anyway
I’m learning because I love it, and it’s actually enjoyable for me to do. Yeah, waking up early every day to do reviews, or struggling to read a manga panel for like 10 minutes sucks sometimes. But that joy of realizing I’m reading, making progress, and getting closer to the goal of fluency comfortable comprehension makes it all worth it. The day I breeze through medieval setting 100+ hr RPG dialogue, listen to an anime first try with little issue, and hold a real conversation with a Japanese person face to face, is the day I cry sweet tears of joy and happiness that I did it, and can spread my knowledge to others.
Learn because you absolutely can’t live without knowing if some obscure doujinshi is ever gonna get translated, or because you wanna read hot tea on idol focused forums, or because you wanna get discount unreleased JRPGs, or because you want to know Japanese era history, or because you’re working there next year, or for any reason that you can’t just simply get a translation. Be that nerdy cool friend who can explain to others what a post says, and revel in the self pride of how far you’ve come. You do have to want it, and I’ve thought many a time, “what if I just never learn?”, but I’d hate to face my future self and see how I wasted my potential.
So thanks Mom and Dad, this was one of the best Christmas investments presents you could ever give me, even if it did take about 7 years to come to fruition.
If anyone has any questions, please ask me! Shout out to all previous level 60 achievers, especially those who posted their celebrations, cause I had no idea how to format this!
