I started learning Japanese in 2007, at my university. After that, all I did was watch anime for a decade. And I’ve gleaned a fair amount, and even a couple kanji in the process. But it’s nothing compared to the progress I made in five minutes of using WaniKani. I’m completely blown away by this. I kind of wish I had started with this instead of my university class back in 07 (though I don’t think this was out back then). I’m just really excited now to keep going, and I’m gonna be subscribing soon!
Thank you to the devs for making such a great app!
I know how you feel
I started studying in February of this year and at the time, kanji seemed like an impossibly large task. But then I found WK, and it’s made things insanely smooth, vocab-wise. I can’t tell you how much I love this place, and the hilarious community.
Before using Wanikani I tried to learn kanji by memory, worst idea ever. Wanikani sure is an amazing platform, be sure to appreciate Koichi-san and everyone from Tofugu.
Yeah. I know the feeling. I’ve attempted to learn kanji like, three different times in the past, and got nowhere. Once was in a university class, falling behind in kanji pretty much single handedly ruined that class. In a month of WaniKani I’ve learned more than I learned in a year of class (admittedly, I learned a lot of other useful things from that class, but the point remains)
At the risk of sounding melodramatic, Wanikani has honestly given me hope that I can actually learn the language. I simply couldn’t conceive of honestly being able to remember over 2000 of these symbols, but here I am, a month in, with 22 kanji “mastered” and 63 at “guru”. I’m under no illusions that actually means I’ve mastered them (yet), but it’s progress. Real, significant progress. It’s a start.
Never mind the side benefit of getting some vocab practice in too.
I’m still to find a better study method for non-natives. I also wish I had found this out sooner. It would have saved me years of writing down kanji trying to memorize them.
Before WaniKani, I spent 2016 convincing myself that I was learning Japanese and I was not. I knew Hiragana very well, but didn’t even try to learn Kanji. Plus, it was a headache to study grammar without knowing Kanji. So I didn’t.
5 months ago, I tried to take Japanese more seriously. I tried. It went well… not perfect.
2 months ago, I started with WaniKani.
More Kanji = less confusion learning grammar and vocab = more learning, more results.
Now I can’t spend 1 day without studying Japanese. I’m addicted. It’s a disease.
I did that as well. Back before WK, I used Jpod 101 (not so bad, but pricey) and I abundantly used their flashcard system. When trying to memorize the kanji, I tried to memorize what they looked like (for example, for 雪 I told myself it was a cloud snowing on a snowbank). It did end up working for some of them- I recognize some kanji on WK that I’ve learned from Jpod- but it was highly inefficient compared to here. Hell, it was just for vocab anyway, not actual kanji readings/meanings.
I’ve always really struggled learning kanji. I think I knew most of lessons 1 and 2 but that was it, that was the limit and I didn’t always know on/kun’yomi for them either, just What They Meant. Wanikani’s been bloody excellent! It’s really, really well designed imo.
Yeah, it’s really funny. We started a couple “basic” kanji in class like わたし [ 私 ], but they weren’t… sticky… Like we knew them mostly when we saw them, but to recall what they look like, it was practically impossible.
