I actually use the Stroke Order Diagram script to add this to my WK lessons.
If you want to also practice writing as you go along, there’s a lovely site kanji.sh where you can download writing practice sheets by WK level.
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Something I found worked for me is writing a journal and when the kanji I don’t know comes up, I look it up and practice. I find its more fun and you use Kanji that you actually use.
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Because my primary goal (I’m the owner/sole developer) is to help people out, and not to monetize them to the bone. So the essential features are, and will be, free.
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For me, the advice to just brute-force individual kanji by writing them over and over again was pretty bad advice. Even with some mnemonics my retention was pretty low. Now I’m mostly using an Anki deck that’s based on the book ‘Kanji in Context’. It teaches you kanji individually and then puts the kanji in some vocab to teach you all the readings and different meanings. I still write them down to help me remember (i bought a mini white board for that), but I don’t need to spend an hour just writing.
The kanji are ordered by frequency of use, so it also has the added bonus that I’ll frequently see the kanji that I learned in real books and newspapers! 
I really recommend using this if you want to set you own pace, so here’s the link if anyone is interested!
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It’s not even that. The problem is that it’s nearly impossible to immerse yourself to the degree that a toddler does while living an adult life.
The other problem is that – because we don’t remember being toddlers – we vastly underestimate just how hard language learning is for toddlers and how long it takes them to be able to communicate. Very few adults will willingly put themselves in a situation where they can only use their second language for four years or more. That’s what toddler-style immersion really looks like.
(Also, even if they tried, very few adults can get away with screaming and pointing at things in order to get what they want.)
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I do the screaming and shouting when I don’t get my way. You’d be amazed how quick people react when a 30 something year old man starts crying because they don’t have the right flavor of Strong Zero.
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Might not be the kind of reaction you want … 
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There’s an episode of hajimete no otsukai which is on Netflix as ‘Old Enough’ where the 3 year old boy starts stomping around shouting “chigai chigai chigai!” and the narrator says, “he doesn’t have the vocabulary.” Something about his Dad telling him to go out without mum wasn’t right and he didn’t want to, but he didn’t have the language skills to express that.
I’m like, yeah, I feel ya kid. I had those moments in Japan too. 
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I feel like an additional point that is being ignored is the involvement of parents constantly correcting incorrect speech to help there kids sound normal by the time they go to school
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This is definitely one of those “your mileage may vary” deals. A lot of people say to stick with one textbook resource. I probably tell people that more often than not. But personally, I use more than one textbook resource. A lot more than one. Probably more simultaneous resources than most people. I hop from book to book. I have only finished a handful of books but I’m a good chunk of the way through many books.
I think the advice to stick to one textbook resource is sound advice. I experienced “resource overload” at the beginning, and still occasionally do. That being said, I’m pulling in so many different perspectives and drawing from the combined experience of so many authors. Almost every book I have used has taught me something or made something make sense in a way that other books didn’t.
It’s funny too because my favorite and “recommended” books are constantly changing based on what I’m working out of at the moment.
My position may be somewhat unique in that I don’t view textbooks as a means to Japanese. I view the textbooks themselves as an entertaining hobby. Fluency to me is a gradual side effect of doing something I enjoy (studying Japanese). And because I enjoy the actual study, I’m able to juggle multiple resources and have study sessions that span 10 hours on some days.
Wait, does Flaming Durtles let you do reviews while you’re on vacation mode? It won’t let me in Tsurukame on IOS.
Right. It’s not just “immersion,” it’s “immersion + 24/7 tutoring.”
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This is one of those “I think I read something in a pop science linguistics book once” replies, but my belief is that parental correction of child mistakes doesn’t actually make a difference. There are some cultures (possibly isolated tribes etc rather than well known ones) where ‘correct child mistakes’ just isn’t a thing parents do, and the children fix their initial speech errors just fine. All they need is sufficient exposure to other people using the language in the standard way over time – active correction doesn’t speed the process up.
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I think its not so black and white and is a mix of nature and nurture. There are certainly words that kids will figure out they are saying wrong through listening to others, but I think social intervention does have a bigger impact, whether that be through parents/teachers/mentors correcting, social embarrassment, and a like make those things stick much more than simply listening to a language long enough you can hear it yourself. Like if I had to put a ratio to it I would probably put it at about 60/40 (nurture/nature).
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Yup. There’s some body of research that suggest that corrective feedback (esp. real-time) isn’t really effective in language learning. Most of it you’ll just forget instantly. You’ll acquire the correct patterns little by little, but that’s not to say there aren’t other feedback methods (like social cues and real-world feedback) that could have an effect.
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I find this hard to believe. I’ve got a lot of kids, and frequently when they don’t know how to say something correctly, we correct them, and they begin to say it correctly a few days later. I could understand if it’s constant correction it could just glaze over, but as parents, you’re correcting your kids at the level they are at (i.e. I don’t correct a one-year-old’s grammar the way I do my six-year-old, etc.). I think parents get such a good idea of their children’s linguistic abilities they are more equipped to correct and guide them. That said, I agree that the bulk of their language knowledge comes from immersion, especially all the books we read.
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To give my two cents, I think what also helps is that kids constantly repeat the stuff they already know. I still remember that as a 4-5 year old I would ask for the same books to be read and for the same disney movies to watch. I would play out the same scenes that I saw or heard about with my stuffed animals, and I would talk about it with adults.
I’m not saying it’s an effective (of efficient) learning technique, but it does create a thorough understanding of the material and the language that is used. I know that for me now, if I finish a book or movie, I won’t read or watch it another ten times because I would get bored.
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While I certainly think that the main thing is just absorbing the correct patterns via massive exposure to a language (whether in a native or non-native language), I cannot agree that real-time correction does not work, at least in my case. I am not any kind of fluent in Japanese yet, but in the language I previously learned to C1-ish level (Spanish), the times someone actually corrected me are seared into my memory. I will never make those mistakes again, even the ones that were fairly subtle.
Disclaimer: I have not read this whole thread, so if you were only talking about children and not second language acquisition, feel free to ignore me 
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This was a large part of my linguistics based degree, and you’re absolutely right. Young children almost never change their language usage as a result of active corrections, its always a slow passive change. The ability for them to grasp what was wrong just hasnt developed at that age, and its that natural development of an ability to cognitively process grammar that allows them to notice there own inaccuracies and self correct.
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This popped up on my suggestions today. Relevant to the “children vs adults” topic. I know, I know, the guy has clickbaity titles and plays fast and loose with the concept of ‘conversational fluency’, but that’s to be expected. Still, the video itself is both amusing and absolutely mostly pretty factual.
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