Okay, it’s time to confess! I didn’t find anything in the search bar so I will start this myself.
What do you like about WaniKani?
In my case, I like 2 things about it :
It does most of the job for me. I don’t have to think about what to study, when to study, how to study, I just follow the orders and reap the benefits.
Nice user interface and experience (UI/UX). There are so many Kanji resources out there but their “looks” are so outdated that it makes even more lazy to learn anything…
That’s it for me, declare everything before it’s too late!
I like that it keeps me ‘on the ball’ as we say in German! I have gone up to N3/N2 level so many times without solid foundation, and forgot everything in between, as I crammed it all in short term memory. WK really forces me to take Japanese language serious, and to take ownership over my learning process. It rewards when you stick to it (and punishes you with piles over piles of vocab and kanji if you slack)!
I like that it keeps me consistent. It’s pretty easy to tap out of doing various daily tasks to practice Japanese, but the urge to level up regularly keeps me coming back here regularly.
I like that all the groundwork is laid for me, which is what I think you were talking about in your second point. So often, setting up the system yourself to learn something ends up being so time consuming and tiring that you don’t actually want to learn anything from the system when you’re done. Plus, this is a framework that works for people—what’s not to love?
And yes, this community is great. Filled with wonderful, fun, helpful, encouraging people, and loads of resources for when I feel guilty for ignoring whatever facet of Japanese I’ve been slacking on lately.
The SRS system and interface is one the best for learning I think.
If I had to use anki or another resource to learn kanji I would be doing much worse. As it is I dislike using memrise for my Genki vocab but right now there is no way to custom set your own wanikani style review.
As said in the OP, I like that it does the heavy lifting for you, so you just log in and do your lessons and reviews, and keep chipping away at them. The UI too also helps me get interested and keep me engaged. I especially like the things like profile levels, clear delineations between item levels, and the SRS system itself. Oh, and especially the fact that you can’t cheat and pretend you know something that you actually don’t. And the lessons are easily structured with just enough to help you remember, but always building off something you know or (in the case of radicals) can figure out.
I also really really like that it encourages me to dedicate time every day to learning something, even if it’s just one piece of vocab. Someone on here said that you’ll succeed if you show up, regularly, and I’m really taking that to heart to inspire me because it seems to be true as far as I can tell. I’m currently feeling a little overwhelmed with how far away my goal (being able to read and listen to Japanese) is, but I really feel like if I keep showing up I’ll get there at some point. Every day I feel like I’m learning a bit here and a bit there and I’m slowly starting to be able to recognize more words in what I come across. I already knew 勝負 for example, after having heard it several times, but I just learned the kanji today and now I’d be able to recognize it if I read it.
Thanks @Draga! Yes, I never took the test, and did not make the most of the chance when I spent a year in Japan… but now I feel more motivated than ever!
The consistency of the study. As it has been said, it is quite easy to follow a routine and benefit from this without thinking about it. Of course, it requires a minimum of commitment and motivation.
The SRS and radical system of study, which is perhaps the most effective way to learn an Asian language in my view.
Great community!! I always find someone with the same problem I’m having or better yet, had it before and came up with a solution … great for my self study … albeit somewhat lonesome japanese learning experience.
API and all the extras!! There’re so many usefull extra features (my favorite the Phonetic-Semantic Composition )… thanks to all programmers that make them possible
Provides some sense of an end to at least one part of my japanese learning path… that until they put a level 61 with yet more wacky mnemonics …
I’ve tried a few other kanji learning methods, and none of them stuck because they did the thing where you separate the kanji from the vocabulary. Now I can see why this works beautifully for some people, but I’m not one of them; I’m one of those people that adds bits of information into a large 4-D web in my head, and the more connections it has the more likely it is to stick.
Thus, learning one (and then a second usually) but not trying to learn all the pronounciations has been great for me, especially since my vocab was already pretty okay, but I just used to mix up kanji that looked similar a lot.
Also, I like the fact that it paces me. I know people don’t like that, but you’ve no idea how many times I gave up RTK because I kept trying to power through and “get it over with”. Uhh…no. That did not work. Given how well this works and how I’m learning vocab and pronounciation as well as Kanji, I’m not fussed about it taking a year. Which is more than I can say for the constant impatience to “just get onto real japanese now” when I tried to learn the kanji separately.
The example sentences with each vocab item are great. I keep a list of the ones that I find most useful, like this one:
オーガニック農場を始めるつもりです- “I’m planning to start an organic farm.”
For every useful one there is at least one utterly ridiculous one which makes you laugh.
Obviously the community is fantastic.
The SRS system is really good and properly made, you don’t realise this until you use a program that has a bad one (like Nihongo Master, which does their version of burning after 6 passes of an item, but you can do it in 6 days).
Mostly I like that it’s got me still learning Japanese after a year, whereas every other time I’ve tried to learn I’ve given up relatively quickly. And yes, of course it’s only one part of the learning puzzle, but it’s an investment. It would be dumb for me to quit now that I know as many kanji as I do, and that motivates me to continue with grammar study even if it’s really really slowly.
I love the fact it forces me to take more time when learning things I like to just learn things and move on, and this website stops that and makes sure I actually learn it completely.
Others have said a lot, but I think a huge benefit is that the data is in the cloud. I can log in with any device and have instant access to my data without any worries about syncing.
Very rarely have I wanted the data available offline - perhaps the only times I can think of when this was wanted was the long flight to Tokyo and back!
… great for my self study … albeit somewhat lonesome japanese learning experience.
)… thanks to all programmers that make them possible 
…
