The statistics site has a useful chart that shows what Wanikani level generally covers from each JLPT level for kanji. Does anyone know where to find a chart like that that shows vocabulary???
Thereâs a bit of a complication in how you would display that info. For instance ăăă is an N5 vocab, but you probably wouldnât be expected to read it in kanji (çŒéĄ) until maybe even N1.
Since WK is about the kanji versions, itâs just not something thatâs as easy to determine. Thereâs no official lists anyway.
As @Leebo mentioned, thereâs no official vocabulary or kanji lists anyway. However, even if we used the compiled ones (with info taken from previous tests), weâd have a problem: WK does not teach you even a fraction of the vocabulary required for JLPT tests. Do not rely on WK for vocabulary, only kanji. And while knowing kanji will help you a lot on understanding vocabulary, in many occasions youâll need to study vocabulary on your own, outside of WK, to be proficient with it.
As an example, Iâve done 30 levels, which is about half the content on the site. I have, during those levels, been given 3315 vocabulary items to illustrate the kanji Iâve been taught. Thatâs close to the estimate vocabulary for N3.
However, studying by N3 lists, thereâs plenty of vocabulary Iâve never come across. In fact, the N4 list itself is ripe with vocabulary items WaniKani hasnât taught me. Just the same, thereâs plenty of vocabulary WK has taught me that isnât on the lists Iâve studied so far. WK isnât here to prepare you for JLPT, except perhaps for the kanji portion of it. If you want to do well on vocabulary, Iâd recommend getting the Sou Matome or Shin Kanzen Master books, since those will focus on that. Donât count on WK to teach you anything other than kanji, and always try and consider the vocabulary you pick up here to be a bonus. It is used to help drill the kanji on your head, not to prepare you for JLPT.
There may be no official JLPT study list, but if you go off of study lists that are based on frequency, as in say, the 700 most frequently used words for JLPT N5, Iâm almost positive youâll likely cover 95% of whatâs on the test. Itâs really not that hard to make reasonable, fairly reliable approximations for stuff like that.
That doesnât sound right since Wanikani covers 6000 vocabulary words. I do study vocabulary outside of WK as well though. It just seems to teach vocab out-of-order, as in not by frequency, but rather by familiarity with kanji. Should still know plenty of JLPT vocab by level 60 using Wanikani, but since itâs out of order it just probably doesnât seem like itâs covering all of the material until you get to the last levels .
Itâs wrong to say it doesnât teach a fraction, but WK wonât cover you on vocab, since the focus is kanji. Thereâs plenty of non-kanji vocab, as well as common words that are skipped on WK since they donât want some of the kanji to have 50 vocab words.
ćæš ă©ăŒă is an N1 word that uses really easy kanji. It means public engineering or public works. WK doesnât bother teaching words like that quite often.
Just what I was looking for. Thanks.
Check the list linked by @polv. At lvl 60 youâll know barely 67% of the cummulative N3 vocabulary, even when youâll know most of the kanji that makes up the remaining words. For N2 and N1 itâs even worse, with 55% for N2 and 44.94% of N1. Even for N5, at lvl 60 you only know 75% of the vocabulary.
So really, donât rely on WK for vocabulary, rely on it for kanji only. It is great at teaching you kanji, the best tool out there in my opinion, but donât try to use it for something it isnât meant to do. Get your vocabulary (and grammar, and reading comprehension) from somewhere else.