Wanikani is just not useful enough, but could be

Wonkyth · February 15, 2018, 1:56am

Wow, this thread is still going. Wut.

acm2010 · February 15, 2018, 1:57am

I agree that people are already embarrassing themselves to the best of their ability, but …

I already got Mami angry, I’m on a roll.
WK is just not paying me well enough to keep me quiet (maybe they got the account details wrong? Also accepting Bitcoins now!)
Once you start using words like “useless” you are in for a fight. If you are a super flyweight fighter it might not be the best of ideas. In this particular case saying “WK is just not for me, how about learning vocab first and then do kanji” would have yielded three or four useful resources and a friendly goodbye.
I don’t agree that any opinion is valuable and worthy of discussion. People without even a trace of an ability to gauge what they are actually asking for or confuse their opinions with the objective truth need to be opposed.

IanD · February 15, 2018, 6:21am

Every part of what I just read was terrible.

For what it’s worth, on the flipside of that coin, I recently had the misfortune of finding a “manual on foreign women: from first encounter to sex” (written by and toward native Japanese speakers) on an end display in a bookstore in Hiroshima. Embarrassing cross-cultural dating books are truly a global phenomenon.

Maybe people are upset that Wanikani isn’t a guide to that? Koichi, more pick-up vocabulary please.

I’m not embarrassed enough using Wanikani at work. But I could be.

EiriMatsu · February 15, 2018, 7:15am

inb4 inevitable link to the NSFW Mode thread revival (it did die, right? )

nyocchi · February 15, 2018, 7:40am

Just got my mom to translate and explain it into Cantonese for me… I think that’s what most of us feel after getting to a decent level of wanikani and still stuck using basic Japanese cause you aren’t good enough.

trunklayer · February 15, 2018, 7:46am

This post I’m writing is just not useful enough, but could be…

Syphus · February 15, 2018, 11:20am

Now that I think about it, 抱き枕 is not a word on the site.

Wonkyth · February 15, 2018, 6:09pm

I should buy a boat…

EiriMatsu · February 16, 2018, 4:24am

Officially the greatest offense against ~~otaku~~ humankind. How dare WK try to censor us from explaining our kawaii waifus to the world!

Syphus · February 16, 2018, 7:02am

Seriously. WK needs to let me live out my gradually-more-desperate fantasy.

dadadavid · February 16, 2018, 7:08am

My goal is to be able to read literature in the original. So really, there are no words that are “not useful” whatever that means.
That said, WaniKani is just not a vocabulary trainer. Although I’d really wish for some more kanji, but OK, there are other resources covering them. But knowing 2000 gives you a real edge for learning the next 1000.

TheRealGojoSatoru · February 16, 2018, 7:49am

Wanikani is

Just not useful enough
But could be

0 voters

TheSageJ · February 16, 2018, 8:21am

I would like to add something that the guy i’m learning japanese grammer from said (paraphrased). One of the worst things you can do while learning japanese is have a japanese friend basically telling you what is and isn’t used. Learning is all about gaining the structure, while some may end up being useless in casual everyday talk, you still need the structure.

Naphthalene · February 16, 2018, 8:22am

100% of a representative panel of 4 6 forum dwellers thought that “WaniKani is. But could be. “

dadadavid · February 16, 2018, 3:29pm

now this is getting philosophical. of course, WaniKani is.

But it also could just be.

jprspereira · February 16, 2018, 3:34pm

Maybe this topic was meant to be philosophical all along, we just didn’t know better.

TamanegiNoKame · February 16, 2018, 3:52pm

A classic “That which is is not, and that which is not is. But that what is not cannot be said to be, for in giving being to what is not not is, is patently obvious…” topic.

Time to pull out some Parmenides and start a philosophy thread…

jinglymoo · February 16, 2018, 4:43pm

I think there were some really excellent points brought up, for both sides of the argument! It was interesting the see that some of the words we learn here are not really commonly used. That is something to be mindful of.

My worry though…eventually I will learn the common kanji, right? Just much later on?

For me personally, I will continue to subscribe and use WK because I haven’t found anything better for helping me memorize kanji. I already am able to read/remember more kanji than I could before WK, and it synergizes with what I learn in school/other learnings methods.

Currently I don’t really have the time to put into much else so WK is my main kanji resource and I hope to finish it within 2-3 years. I think as long as I’ll eventually learn the common kanji, it is worth it?

koichi · February 16, 2018, 4:47pm

This site is great for seeing what kanji you’ll be able to read at what level. I think a big issue with this topic is people are just saying things, but actual data is pretty nice, too:

hgbearawesome · February 16, 2018, 4:48pm

There are quite a few common kanji in all levels, just not all at once. My rule of thumb is if I keep seeing a certain kanji over and over again on my own, learn it. If it comes up later in WaniKani, then that’s just more reinforcement.