WaniKani almost feels "too good to be true"

[plantron]

TBTBT = Too Bad To Be True

[Simian60]

@YannisB

To make it short, here is my question for those who are more experienced than me : “How crucial is it to start practicing my reading skills with NHK easy news (or other easy reading materials) before I reach level 20?”

If you start reading NHK now, you will at least be able to sight read 新しいコロナウイルス, and 緊急事態宣言 by the end of the week…

I would say, that if you want to learn to read Japanese, then the only way of doing that is to practice reading it. Reading on the web is good; Yomi-Chan allows you to hover over words if you don’t understand them, and Jisho.org is OK at picking up the word conjugations, so even at a low level (I think I started NHK Easy at ~10) you can make sense of the text, even if it’s not entirely clear. And, if you fancy a laugh^W^W^W get completely stuck, you can always drop a sentence into google translate.

Seeing kanji & words in the wild is a different experience from seeing them in WK, and knowing the reading can be harder without the supplementary clues and familiar environment. Reading can also help with grammar - at least you know what you don’t know - and above all, help with the way Japanese is written/spoken.

[thechilltrain]

I haven’t seen anyone else mention randomized fonts yet, so here you go!

I find my reviews more challenging (and more useful) with this extension. Changing the font forces me to develop a deeper understanding of the kanji’s components, instead of recognizing the overall shape. With varied fonts, you really have to confront “visually similar” kanji, which you might breeze past without it.

While WaniKani is useful for building vocabulary, a lot of the vocab is weird, or not usually written with kanji. WK is an excellent tool, but it’s only one part of a balanced diet. Grammar studies, and general vocab studies, will be more useful than furiously drilling kanji… unless you love the kanji themselves, more than reading/speaking Japanese.

Good luck with your Japanese-learning adventure!

[YannisB]

Thanks for this recommendation!

I’ll start reading on the side with the Tadoku graded readers until I feel confident enough to start reading NHK news easy without too much of a trouble.

I thank you all for your answers, great community!