well i have kodansha 2000 kanji book. i heard that wanikani and kodansha 2000 kanji book are SMILIAR but of course both teaches differently. i mean wanikani is slow. i just started and im on level 2. i dont understand the appreintance and guru numbers. but i assume u have to reach x amount of numbers to hit to the next level.
also using japanese from zero book series for grammar. im on book 5. so whatever else, im hoping wanikani will let me read street signs, japanese text like nhk5 website
To reach the next level you will need to get 90% of the kanji for that level to Guru. To get something to Guru you just need to get it right a certain amount of times, you can read about the SRS here:
It gets fast soon enough. In the beginning when you donāt have that many reviews yet it will feel slow, but give it a few more levels and youāll probably have to slow yourself down to not get overwhelmed. The pace picks up quite fast.
For grammar, I went through the Genki books myself. I also practice reading by going through simple books. Itās really helpful to see vocabulary and grammar used in actual real-world sentences. If youāve studied some basic grammar, you can take a look at the book clubs, reading along with them makes reading a lot easier, and you can ask questions if somethingās unclear. I also read some NHK easy articles when I have time. The more you practice the better you get.
Hello and welcome to the world of studying Japanese! 
Most common starter pack for beginners I see nowadays is Wanikani for kanjis and Genki textbook+Tae Kim guide+Bunpro for grammar. A bit later you may find some interesting clues on Cure Dolly yt channel. Youāll need jisho.org for plain dictionary and Rikaikun Chrome browser extension (or similar -kun for your browser) as well for proper immersion into JP environment.
Thereāre some advanced must-have sources as well, but this should make solid starting point so far.
Good luck and have fun!
p.s. ah, and writing down your own Anki deck is the must.
well im barely on level 2. i had an another account but forgot the entire acc when i fnished level 3. but if you say it gets faster, then it shouldnt take like a year and 5 months or so. lmao. its december 2020 and that means im expected to finish by december 2021. in 3 months prob level 10
Once you reach the fast levels you will be pretty busy. By that time you will be buried under a pile of reviews.
I agree with this, when I watch anime, sometimes I hear vocab from WaniKani. It helps to rewind, and try to fully understand the sentence. It creates a new connection in the brain, and helps with memory. Hearing things a different perspective/context will also allow you to see progress! Immersing yourself in Japanese culture will help, I promise.
To set your expectations properly, 2-3 years is a decent pace. Thatās roughly 150-200 reviews per day. Thatās maybe an hour of total time spent per day*.
If you go all out, you can get it done in 12 months but thatās significantly harder and 500-600+ reviews per day at least. And thatās several hours per day*.
** Note that this is every day for the next āxā number of years. Itās a legitimate commitment.
Thatās a slow pace for learning 2000+ kanji in your opinion?
For reference, according to my home countryās 2011 Chinese syllabus (which probably still applied to me as a student), students who learnt Chinese at the same level as me (we studied Chinese at different levels depending on academic ability and whether or not we wished to go further) were supposed to graduate with the ability to read and write 2700-2800 characters. We used the Simplified Chinese character set, and our formal Chinese education lasted 10 years, including essays, projects and in-class presentations. Granted, that means we probably got a much better understanding of nuance and real usage than what WaniKani alone can give you for Japanese, but if you assume each kanji takes the same amount of time to learn (if only that were true 
), youād find it takes about eight years to cover 2000 kanji at that pace. (I rounded down to 2500 characters since I vaguely remember a syllabus change midway through my education, meaning my syllabus might have been a little less hanzi-rich.) Even if you strip away all the nuance-learning and practice through things like essays (which are useful, honestly), youād probably still take about four years given all the textbook readings we had plus our immaturity as children. WK might not give you the same level of understanding of kanji as a native speaker of Chinese or Japanese, but just over a year for 2000+ kanji seems pretty good to me.
Sure, some people can probably go faster, but itāll take quite a bit of effort, and without extensive practice (say, frequent messages to a Japanese friend), Iād be really surprised if they manage to retain much kanji knowledge at all. Quite a few of the people using āfasterā methods like RTK rapidly get through their lists of kanji, but confess a few months later that they donāt remember much at all, possibly because they never learnt to pronounce those kanji or use them in a sentence. There are plenty of discussions on Reddit about that.
PS: Iām not saying any one method is better, and frankly, the best method in my opinion is a combination of exposure to usage in context along with kanji practice in some form (e.g. WK, RTK with Anki or some other SRS), but trying to go faster just for the sake of it doesnāt always work.
Okay, so this is just what I personally used for grammar. I should also preface this by say I am new to WK too, and that my grammar is actually much further along than my kanji knowledge. For that reason, I am going to suggest two things that really helped my grammar skyrocket.
Tae Kimās Grammar Guide:
I use this extensively whenever I am first learning new grammar points. After that, in order to consolidate my knowledge, I move on to my next suggestion.
Write a chapter pretending youāre explaining the grammar to an invisible third-party:
I found it most useful to attempt to write a chapter on grammar using my own explanation and words (i.e. not regurgitating Tae Kimās words). To do this I wouldnāt simply write notes for key bulletpoints, I would attempt to write a detailed chapter on how that grammar point works as if I were explaining it to a complete ignoramus. (As a side benefit, these chapters can then be used to help others by publishing them online, thatās what I did.)
I came back because I figured I ought to list some of the resources Iāve seen or used instead of just commenting on how quickly kanji can actually be learnt. Here we go:
Textbooks: Genki, Minna no Nihongo, Japanese from Zero
I personally think Genki is one of the better textbooks. Minna no Nihongo looked kinda boring when I flipped through it in a bookshop, though I was already at the intermediate level at that point. Also, Genki is probably easier to self-study than Minna no Nihongo, even if itās still designed for classroom use. Itās more interesting. If you want some thoughts on the challenges involved in self-study using Genki, check out the Tofugu review. Some people think Genki is no good for self-learners, but wellā¦ I guess how good a textbook is depends on how well it suits you.
Kana Learning:
Use whatever you want, but make sure you learn the correct stroke order if you intend to write them, otherwise, especially when you go fast, theyāll become illegible for native speakers. Writing practice will help you remember them anyway. My main resources were kana tables, especially the ones on the Wikipedia āHiraganaā and āKatakanaā pages. I suggest that you learn them in five sound blocks, following this order for the vowels: A, I, U, E, O. Why? Because thatās the order used for classification in Japan. The other order used for classification is the Iroha system, but thatās more traditional and probably not as useful for Japanese learners. I also used this (but thatās because Iām a Chinese speaker):
Grammar: maybe Tae Kimās Guide. I personally think it should be dropped as soon as possible because it contains errors, but outside of textbooks, I donāt think there are many other grammar resources that are constructed with beginners in mind. The Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar is probably a better choice, but itās obviously something youāll have to pay for, and Iāve never used it. The extracts that have been quoted on the WK forums seem good though.
Textbooks: An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese (from Genkiās publisher, the Japan Times), Minna no Nihongo, Tobira
I havenāt looked at MnNās intermediate textbook, but given what Iāve seen of the beginner textbook, Iām not expecting much. I donāt know if Japanese from Zero has intermediate textbooks. The best two textbooks for the intermediate level, in my opinion, are Tobira and AIAtIJ (full title above). I feel like Tobiraās lexicon is probably slightly more advanced in the initial chapters, or at least, it starts teaching you place names and little things about Japanese geography straightaway. AIAtIJās first lesson feels like an revision lesson with some keigo thrown in. Howeverā¦ I guess that means AIAtIJās lessons are generally more practical. The topics covered and the words used seem like things youād be able to use in everyday life, even as someone studying Japanese outside Japan with limited contact with Japanese people and culture. (For example, what you learn might be useful while reading the news.) It even covers certain aspects of social interaction. Tobira, on the other hand, has a heavy cultural focus, which can be exciting if you really love Japan and Japanese culture, but may get boring at times if youāre not interested in a particular facet of Japanese culture covered by the book. AIAtJ seems to have extensive explanations and very detailed notes in English, including some about, for instance, social interaction and culture. Tobira mainly covers grammar and vocabulary lists in English, and does everything else in Japanese, with a focus on more tangible cultural elements that can be seen in sports, pop culture and the like. I own Tobira, whereas Iāve only seen snippets of AIAtJ (I didnāt know it existed when I went textbook shopping), but now I kinda wished I had AIAtJ instead. It seems much more helpful for self-learners, especially since it teaches students elements of how to behave in Japanese society, which is something I want to learn, but havenāt been able to from Tobira. In conclusion, Iād recommend AIAtJ over Tobira based on what Iāve seen in the sample pages, unless youāre really motivated to learn on your own and you want an immersive, Japanese-only experience allowing you to learn about Japanese festivals and other tangible cultural elements. In that case, get Tobira.
EDIT: Apparently Tobira covers more vocabulary and grammar overall, so thereās that to consider as well. If youāre an adult learner, you may also find AIAtIJ more boring, because itās meant for university students, whereas Tobira covers non-university topics even though itās a university textbook. However, I can say from experience that Tobira isnāt designed for self-study. AIAtIJ feels more doable for someone studying alone. The only reason Tobira helped me is that Iām a dictionary miner ā I read dictionary definitions both for immersion and to learn nuances. Most of what I learnt, I learnt from the dictionary and the internet, not from the textbook. Thatās all I can say.
Grammar: Imabi is a great free website that covers Japanese grammar for all levels, but I think itās probably more useful starting from the intermediate level. Alternatively, you can get the Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar, which has been recommended by others on WK.
Textbooks: äøć»äøē“ę„ę¬čŖęē§ęø ę„ę¬ćøć®ęå¾
ććć¹ć
äøē“ę„ę¬čŖęē§ęø ęåćøć®ć¾ćŖććāććć¹ć
I believe these two textbooks are at almost the same level, with the second one (äøē“ę„ę¬čŖ etc) being slightly more difficult, probably with a bit of technical vocabulary in it since it has a chapter on āClones and Lifeā. I donāt think there are many other well-known advanced textbooks, since theyāre almost all written in Japanese only. These contain translations in Chinese, English and Korean for vocabulary words. Again, these are designed for classroom use, but from what Iāve seen, you should do just fine with a dictionary. I own the first one (äøć»äøē“ę„ę¬čŖ etc) because a friend recommended it to me, but since itās currently 10000km+ away from me, I havenāt opened it yet. Iāve seen sample pages though, and they look good.
(By the way, some people feel that you shouldnāt/donāt really need to bother with a textbook for advanced Japanese and that you should just dive into native material. My opinion, based on my experience with French, is that having a textbook streamlines the process for you because the material is usually more organised. Yes, you can probably get away with powering through newspaper articles and anime with a dictionary ā thatās what Iām doing now whenever I feel motivated, because I donāt have my textbook ā, but unless youāre very good at finding materials only in the domains that interest you, the vocabulary and grammar youāll learn will be all over the place, and you might not remember it very well because thereās no structure.)
Grammar: The Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar. How good is it? No idea, but someone on WK said it helped with their translation exam, so why not? Sounds good to me.
YouTube
Websites
Dictionaries
Thatās about all I can think of for now.
I just want say that I really appreciate your thorough responses not only to this subject but many others, too. Itās pleasure to read them. I wish I had your patience to respond to posts and questions in such a detailed way. Really, thanks again and keep it up.
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