WaniKani in other languages: Let's make this happen!

WaniKani API And Third-Party Apps
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Hey everyone! :wave:

Something has been bugging me lately: Even though my English is pretty decent (for being from Germany), I keep stumbling over WaniKani’s English content. It’s not just complex words – even seemingly simple terms in the first levels like “barb”, “fins”, or “narwhal” made me pause and look them up. And don’t get me started on some of those mnemonics! And I’m not the first to experience this.

This got really to me when some teens in my family showed interest in learning Japanese. They’re struggling with English in school, and while I really wanted to recommend WaniKani to them, having to learn through English would just be too much of a burden. Learning Japanese is challenging enough without having to translate everything twice in your head!

Now, I know about Doitsukani and the synonym feature suggested in the Ultimate Guide. But let’s be honest – that’s just scratching the surface. The real issue is with all those mnemonics and explanations that are so crucial to how WaniKani works.

So here’s what I’m thinking: Let’s build something like KaniWani, but for making WaniKani accessible in other languages. Since the WaniKani team doesn’t seem to be planning this themselves (correct me if I’m wrong), why not create it as a community?

I’m a developer, and I’m willing to put in the work to:

  • Build a solid backend system
  • Create native iOS/Mac apps
  • Provide a well-documented API
  • Use automated systems for initial translations
  • Use AI for culturally adapting mnemonics (to save time initially)

What I would need help with:

  • People who can build Web/Android apps (not my expertise)
  • Native speakers in various languages to improve the machine translations
  • Help adapting mnemonics to different cultures (AI results aren’t accurate)

Like KaniWani, this would be completely open-source and free for WaniKani subscribers. I’m not looking to make money here – I just want to make WaniKani accessible to more people who could really benefit from it.

Note to the WaniKani Team:
If you have any issues with us translating WaniKani content, just let me know! We’ll of course remove any language once you add official support for it – and if the translations could help kickstart your own localization efforts, they’re all yours! This is really only about helping more people use WaniKani (more effectively). :handshake:

If you would be interested in using such a 3rd-party app/site, give this post a like! And if you’d like to help out (whether with translations or coding), let me know!

3 Likes
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Are you proposing to build a WaniKani competitor by copying their progression system and bulk-translating their content? That’s pretty adversarial.

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No. I‘m thinking about something like the Tsurukame app for iOS. But the contents are localized.

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But then why not just expand on doitsukani? Building bespoke apps just for localization seems overkill to me.

Also I wonder how long the WaniKani API itself will remain usable, it seems to be effectively unmaintained. I personally wouldn’t invest a lot of my time on the project with the assumption that the WaniKani devs will keep the backend available.

As absurd at it sounds, userscripts might be a better long term solution…

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It’s not overkill if the mnemonics and explanations are the main portion of the problem. I might even directly add the localization to Tsurukame. That’s also why Doitsukani is not enough.

But why do I need to worry about the API? Are there plans to give it up I‘m not aware of? Tsurukame and KaniWani seem to work well.

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None of the new features make it to the API, and they gutted the review endpoint last year. It seems to be treated like a legacy system. You can’t unburn items through the API, you can’t access the new usage patterns or daily lesson limits. They’ve also confirmed that the new radical illustrations wouldn’t be part of it.

I know that I sound very negative but I really wouldn’t invest that amount of work to build a free addon to a proprietary and rather expensive platform, especially when its developers have shown time and again that they have no appreciation for that work and will break everything at any point for any reason. I’d sooner work on an Anki addon or something like that.

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I’m not really sure if the lack of any of these newer features really matter to the average WaniKani user. I’m using WaniKani through the Tsurukame app 99% of the time. All I need is there and works like a charm. But I appreciate the insights into the history of the API. I’ll keep all that in mind.

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Hallo, ich freue mich sehr auf dein deutsches WaniKani. Ich kann es kaum erwarten. Ich bin immer auf der Suche nach Apps, Webseiten und Foren auf Deutsch, um Japanisch zu lernen. Kennst du welche? Ich möchte unbedingt meine Deutschkenntnisse verbessern und die Sprache beherrschen. Viel Glück! :blush::smiling_face_with_three_hearts::white_heart:

Übrigens, das ist mein Deutsch, kein Google Translator oder so. Leider kann ich es wegen Angst nicht so gut sprechen wie ich es schreibe :disappointed::disappointed::disappointed:

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9

Would you please tell me, what is doitsukani?

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I linked to it in my original post. You could also use the forum search to find it.

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I’m sorry for the inconvenience as my question may sound silly, but do you by any chance know how much data the upload of Doitsukani will use?

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Please ask this question in their thread. I have no idea and it’s off-topic in this thread.