I’m using this guide Learn Japanese: A Ridiculously Detailed Guide to learn Japanese. Sorry if I don’t get the terminology correct but I have learnt to read, write and type Hiragana. I just opened up WaniKani and was launched straight into a lesson - I’m usually pretty good at working things out (like using WaniKani) but I’m a bit lost. The guide I read recommends I start learning Kanji. In the lessons, I’m learning radicals but how does it relate to learning Kanji? Am I meant to remember the corresponding words to the symbols and then later when things are put together I kind of create a story based on the words I remember for each symbol?
Also, is there a mode for someone who is trying to learn quickly? I have a lot of time at the moment and I learnt Hiragana pretty quickly so I hope its the same for Kanji.
There is a knowledge guide with ‘on-boarding’ under Help in the menu. Radicals are components of Kanji. You just learn their name in English. With Kanji lessons you learn their meaning and reading. There is no speed mode. Speed is implicitly adjusted by the number of lessons you do and then when you do the reviews, and your accuracy. It seems slow at first but the volume increases a lot after a few days and weeks. It is good to use other resources to not only study Kanji - I recommend Irodori (it’s good and it’s free).
Exactly that is how WaniKani is supposed to work. Wanikani even provides you with a ready-made story using these symbols you are learning first. As soon as you associate the Radicals with a meaning, you get to learn Kanji. These are made up of one or more “radicals” and the Kanji has its own meaning and additionally readings associated with it that you have to learn. (just FYI, what WaniKani calls Radicals are not all radicals in the strict Japanese sense, I personally prefer the term component :D)
There is no fast lane to learning Kanji in WaniKani. If you want to go faster than what WaniKani allows you to, you have to use a different tool. But I don’t recommend going faster than the maximum WaniKani speed. Typically, learning Kanji isn’t the bottleneck in the first year of your Japanese journey.
Instead, I recommend doing other learning activities like listening a lot to get used to the language or starting with Grammar.
You also didn’t tell us if you’re finished with Katakana, if not, you should also learn to read and write the Katakana for sure.
EDIT: Just to give you a perspective. It is normally recommended to learn Hiragana + Katakana in around 2 weeks. The typical Jouyou Kanji will take you AT LEAST 1 year or more. Therefore it is really important to pace oneself since a lot of life happens in that timeframe.
Hello, in my opinion radicals helps a lot for memorizing and later if you want to write in japanese, draw kanji or read. And for the speed version you can speed up your learning by doing more than 15 lessons a day but kanji is more like a marathon than a sprint . I made the experience by myself when I did 40 lessons for 3 days and the days after I was overwhelmed by the reviews (basically 150 per day) and I had no fun to learn so since you’re starting learning kanji I’d advice you to do 15 lessons at the start and in 1 or 2 weeks adjust to your speed.
I’m doing 25 lessons a day, and its not as fun as advertised. Some days its very fun and easy and you just practice your cards and win and then some days the cards just wont stick and then you get another big heaping serving of another 25 cards on top. And kanji can have more than one meaning and hopefully you can get those straitened out in your mind, because I’m having a hard time with some kanji.
. I made the experience by myself when I did 40 lessons for 3 days and the days after I was overwhelmed by the reviews (basically 150 per day) and I had no fun to learn so since you’re starting learning kanji I’d advice you to do 15 lessons at the start and in 1 or 2 weeks adjust to your speed.