A few of my Japanese friends have been following my WaniKani journey with great interest, and really enjoying seeing me progress so quickly.
They enjoy it so much, in fact, that they’ve been asking about a similar SRS-style website where they can learn English (grammar, or vocab, or anything really).
So I’m turning to you! Have you ever heard of, or come across a reputable website like that?
iknow?
anki with a deck made for jp-english learners? If you set the intervals at the corresponding wanikani ones it shouldn’t be too different
I think people tend to underestimate the hurdles of Anki for all but full-time language-learners. For someone seeing Wanikani who just wants to brush up their English-vocab in a similarly engaging way, the appeal is probably in the presentation and ease of use.
I second iKnow, though. Very similar, since English doesn’t have to pull out spelling as its own separate area of study (or at least not to the same extent as kanji for Japanese learners).
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As someone who learnt English as an adult I beg to differ. Spelling is by far the hardest part of English. Kanjis might be harder, but English spelling is one of the hardest and most obscure aspects of the language.
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I often compare spelling and kanji when speaking to Japanese people about language, so I hear you! I just meant that, unlike kanji and vocabulary in Japanese, spelling and vocabulary in written English can’t be uncoupled. Hence a vocab platform like iKnow catching everything you need.
(I don’t mean to say there can’t also be significant time put into learning the patterns and mechanics of spelling, but as far as an SRS review system, it’s harder to pull the two apart in English than it is for kanji and overall vocab while learning Japanese. English’s character list is set at twenty-six, and from there it’s just about learning all the patterns for arrangement, and the many exceptions. Getting the actual building blocks/characters in Japanese requires its own continuous learning.)
Congrats on attaining English fluency as an adult, by the way! The more I learn a second language of my own, and the more I teach English, the more I appreciate that it’s a massively difficult language.
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I’m a dyslexic myself, so, despite being a “native speaker”, I feel their pain when it comes to spelling and as it happens I’ve been thinking about what such a thing would look like. SRS is a must and the spellings of some words you just have to learn, but I’m wondering if you can break other words down based on their origins. Many English words are made of bits of words from other languages stuck together. For example “television”. If you know “tele-” the words “teleport”, “telecommute”, “telegraph” and so on are going to make a lot more sense.
Japanese wears it’s etymology on it’s sleeve because of Kanji but English is whole lot more implicit about this stuff.
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Thanks! I’ve set them onto iKnow, I’ll see how they get on with it.
These Videos may be of some use
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