Well, I went to Japan for almost a month. That was fantastic! However, I also thought since I would be using and reading Japanese that I would not need study my WaniKani during that time.
I was wrong. Now I have like 800 reviews to do, and I’m having trouble remembering quite a few of them.
Just wanted to advise anyone thinking like I was: I think it’s better to keep going with WaniKani while in Japan. I did read kanji while I was there, but not enough to cover all the kanji I am studying on here.
And although I was speaking/listening in Japanese, I didn’t use (or even hear) a lot of the words I’m studying on WaniKani. That’s for two reasons that I can think of: 1. my Japanese isn’t advanced enough to have very complex conversations and 2. I wasn’t in situations that required some of the advanced and specific language we’re studying.
Anyway, just wanted to share my experience and maybe help someone avoid the same issue.
If you ever know that you are NOT going to do ANY reviews/lessons for a period of time (days, weeks…) put WK into vacation mode to avoid a mountain of reviews in the future!
If you didn’t know about this, then now you can avoid the headache in the future. If you did know about this…maybe rethink about it in the future
WK does not teach vocab that is practical in general or useful for travelling. Foremost, it teaches the vocabulary that reinforces the kanji that you have learnt.
I’ve actually encountered a lot of vocabulary from WK, but it’s been while reading. This makes sense since WK teaches how to read, and also because there is usually more vocabulary exposure when reading.
To compare to English, if you came back from the store you might say:
“I bought a can of soda”
But if you were reading a novel, you might see:
“I bought a can of soda”, Jason muttered while brandishing his purchase for all to see.
And I have found a lot of WK words in the narration of novels.
