I’ve never heard of anyone thinking やっぱり only means “too.”
It’s a possible translation of the word, but not the most common usage.
So, if your advice is “don’t read just one word of an entry”… Okay? I think most people do more than that.
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It might, but I can’t really afford that. I’m already doing four more traditional lessons a month, and that two hour conversation session. I have tried italki. That didn’t work. Either my Japanese wasn’t good enough at the time or I just came across bad for some reason, but Japanese folks don’t seem to want to talk to me. It’s just really, really awkward.
And that’s my point. I find it discouraging that others here seem to be missing what I’m saying. I’m not saying “don’t learn grammar and vocabulary”. I’m saying “learning grammar and vocabulary won’t take you to fluency and if you were to stop studying it today, as long as you kept consuming and practicing the language and learning what you needed when you needed it, you’ll still progress”.
And I didn’t say that it did. I said that “too” was the meaning highest on the list, was one translation, and my teacher and I both agreed that the word is more of a concept and doesn’t really have a direct translation to English - though it does have a few better translations than others. I’ve said before on this forum that if I have to choose between my sensei and random strangers on a forum, I’ll go with my sensei every time (for most things), so meh. Interpret what I said how you want.
Anyway, off to do real day-starting things, have a good morning.
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That all depends on your definition of “fluency”. To me, if I cannot keep reading anything be it articles, watching videos, etc without having to use a dictionary every 15 words, that’s not fluency. I study japanese since many years and I still not have that level, because I did not have a tool like WK to keep learning common-advanced words (those over lvl 20-25 to lvl 40-50).
You can’t guess or learn japanese words along the way as easily as with other languages like I did with english as a french speaker.
I don’t know what is fluency to you, but just being able to buy food and speak to your neighbor time to time is not fluency to me.
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Well, there is Callan Method that’s based on the concept of learning by immersion (in a way that kids learn English/language AFAIR). On the one hand - there is some merit to it. On the other - as adults we have slightly wider toolset which helps us understand and learn things faster.
Bottomline - concentrating solely on cramming grammar points and vocabulary is not all that helpful. But ditching it completely may not be the best way either.
Also: what you know about language is skewed by the environment and what you need. For example in my case (not native in neither Spanish nor English):
- I’m fairly fluent in English, but more towards “business English” (and what I got from all the shows I absorbed), so I have no idea how a lot of vegetables are named in English - because I didn’t need to so even if I have learned I since have forgotten
- I’m intermediate in Spanish, but because I live in Spanish speaking country I’m quite comfortable in day-to-day situations and know a lot of vocabulary that’s helpful in that context (so, going back to the previous example - I can name a lot of veggies because I needed that skill on day to day basis) but if I had to make a presentation or training in Spanish that could be slightly more challenging.
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“As easily” is true. But there are some patterns that aren’t obvious and don’t seem to be taught normally. But yes, you do have to have the foundational knowledge to see the patterns.
Interestingly there are some words that have been imported into Japanese as native words, such as “tobacco”. Guessing pronunciation of the kanji would not work, but the meaning would be absolutely clear once you heard the pronunciation. Those are very rare, though.
You’re not missing much. I like meat. 
Kind of the same with fruits and vegetables in Japanese. Some have katakana pronunciations. Most don’t…
But WK is not really a vocab learning tool, you are learning those vocab to enforce the kanji. Even if you burn WK vocab, you still need tons of exposure to that word to really have “learned it”. WK gives you the tools to start learning vocab as you go. Just learning vocab lists is horribly inefficient.
Getting lvl 60 is still many years and over ten thousand words away from really to be able to read anything comfortably. Not to mention listening is a separate skill.
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Wanikani is an important part of this complete breakfast!
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I get what you’re trying to say and I’m not totally disagreeing. However, if you think about it this way, it might “clear things up” a bit:
What’s the point of language? It’s to express ideas and concepts that visuals won’t or can’t fully describe. How do you do this? By having these concepts written down and verbalized. Ok, so how do we do this? With vocabulary and grammar along with established rules to follow that a group of people can agree on so as to have uniformity and no confusion on what is meant.
These vocabulary, grammar, and rules are set by various groups (or “tribes”) of people throughout the world (a.k.a. language). For those of us on this board, our native language that has been established and used in our “tribe” (or country) is English. Our objective is to figure out and practically use the communication method established by the “tribe” of Japan, the Japanese.
Ok, so with concrete out of the way, now let’s focus on the more abstract. As mentioned, language is the expression of concepts and ideas that visuals won’t/can’t express (fully). The first mistake that any language learner tries to do is make a literal translation from English to Japanese. Don’t do that! Instead, taking into account that language is simply the way to express ideas, first understand the rules that have been established by the Japanese for their language. Then, understand the words that will help you mention specific things. Finally, understand how Japanese people decide to convey their ideas through context and nuance. Once you combine these 3 things, you will be able to convey your own ideas based on the rules and understandings established and used by the people of Japan.
In other words, don’t think in a certain language, think in what thought actually is: concepts. First, understand what the idea or concept that you want to convey is. Next, understand the “delivery method” that will be used to convey this idea for others of the same communication method to understand. If you can understand the way that the people of Japan do this along with what it is you want to convey, you will be “fluent” in Japanese. I say “fluent” because all fluency is is having language flow from your mouth in the target way of your audience. You don’t have to be an expert, but good enough. You get good enough through exposure to concrete ideas (grammar and vocabulary) and abstract ideas (nuance and context).
So, to summarize, you aren’t fully wrong, but, as others have mentioned, you must understand the place and importance what language is and the aspects that make it up and how it fits into using them to convey ideas. As you mentioned, Japanese is made up of concepts; well, that’s how ALL languages work. Again the key takeaway is that we all have concepts and ideas in our minds that can sometimes only be conveyed via written and spoken form (a.k.a language). Once you know what you want to convey from your mind, the method of how your target language works to do so (in this case, Japanese), and to not think in terms of language but of ideas for communicating in, you will be able to communicate in the established form of the people of Japan, Japanese.
…that is, until we figure out how to take our ideas and express them in precise, complex ways without using words and grammar, by which point language will become obsolete. 
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I’m an ESL teacher, and my opinion on the best timing to stop using your native language as a crutch is: immediately.
I teach classes of students where they all have different native tongues, and they have to use English if they want to say anything at all. A lot of them fight it and want to use dictionaries and learn vocab by translation, “Until they’re better” until they interact with classes that are not as mixed and are using their own languages as crutches, and they’ll always mention how bad the other classes sound (not to their faces…) but it’s so noticeable. And usually permanent.
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Okay, I guess there’s no reason to discuss it then >_>
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Maybe you simply need to use a variety of sources rather than simply using Jisho? As a contrast, in the Kenkyusha J-E dictionary, the word is translated as ‘after all’. 
It then lists its equivalence to やはり and under that entry ‘too’ is just one of a whole variety of different meanings along with various usage examples for each of its distinct and differing meanings.
It would seem to me that trying to learn these glosses in a vacuum is a particularly poor idea as you seem to have discovered. Instead, it seems much better to pair them with usage examples, properly vetted for accuracy and natural usage, from which you can build a foundation for using the words, grammar points, etc. correctly. You’re never going to become fluent by any metric simply by reading a dictionary.
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Lol, yeah. But recently there was a meme circulating around the interwebz about “serious /li:k/ under the sink” and while I know it’s name in Polish/Spanish I still was surprised first time I saw it
Yes that’s what I meant, because I also know by experience that trying to learn words made of kanjis you don’t know is very inefficient ^^.
I actually recognize many kanjis over lvl 20 because I read them many times through Rikai chan when reading online for example. But not to an extent that I always perfectly know the reading and meaning.
If the point of discussion is to try to change someone’s mind, I guess not.
Of course, I’m open to good arguments. Sensei is not always right. But all other things being equal, sensei gets precedence.
Perhaps you should consider the irony in posting a topic explaining what you’ve learned while also saying that you don’t really trust random people on the internet.
The point Leebo was making doesn’t contradict what your teacher said anyway. He pointed out that やっぱり doesn’t generally mean “too”, but that it can. You focusing on the meaning “too” doesn’t mean the problem is with translating the word into English. The problem is that you selected the wrong meaning to focus on. If you use a monolingual dictionary for any word with multiple meanings and focus on the wrong one for the context you’re looking at, you’d run into the same problem. It’s not unique to using Japanese/English dictionaries.
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No irony. No one is required to trust me. I’m just putting out something I discovered. If someone doesn’t agree or doesn’t care, then no skin off my nose. Really. I honestly don’t care what people think or me or what I say for the most part. But I do like to be helpful, and if something I say is, so much the better. If not, Oh well. It’s not like I’m wasting anything here but time.
All that said, I often regret trying to be helpful. It rarely leads to actually being helpful in any meaningful way. I guess this thread may be no exception Oh well.
No, that’s not the point. The point is that the word “yappari” seems to be more of a concept than a particular meaning anyway, and the way it’s translated into English seem to be different aspects of that concept. No meaning of the word seems to directly translate into an English concept, though some translations better express the underlying concept than others. The more common meanings, such as “after all” or “as expected”, seem to point to something like a confirmation of something that was suspected, expected, or thought.
It’s the fact that there seems to be an underlying concept which is more generally expressed by one word and manifests in English in many different less accurate ways that I found interesting and thought I’d share here. As again, no one has to agree. In fact, people often don’t. I don’t mind, it doesn’t change much at all.
Of course, that’s a particularly abstract thought, and one I’m regretting sharing here, tbh. I should know better than to provide a concrete example, because focus always ends up on the example than the underlying point. But then, again, I was trying to be helpful for some reason.
I think it’s because what you suggested in the OP and later on in the topic was very matter of fact, so there’s bound to be some contention. 24 people have liked your topic, so I have no doubt that it’s been helpful to some people. But when you post something, you should (sometimes) expect disagreement, and in my opinion the back and forth itself can provide valuable insights to those reading the topic.
This is often the case for words in any language. (Just wait til you get to all the words in WaniKani with the same English translation but they all have different usages.) To give my own example, I was reading a book where a character said something about 蒸気 and then corrected themselves to 湯気. Jisho gives “steam” and “vapor” for both of them, but a monolingual dictionary indicates very different usages and nuance. Perhaps what you’ve been thinking of as an “underlying concept” is really just “nuance”.
Either way, I agree with your general thought that some words simply cannot be reasonably translated from Japanese to English for various reasons. Sometimes this could just be a loss of nuance (as with my 蒸気・湯気 example), and other times it’s incredibly awkward or impossible to translate directly at all (like with よろしく in some cases).
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It does have definitions in Japanese you know. I don’t think you’ll find something vague like “the concept of equivalence” but in Japanese.
It’s not that I disagree with the topic generally. It’s a good idea to not rigidly stick to particular glosses.
But I also get a bit tired of people saying things like “仲間 is a word that can’t be translated.” Maybe there isn’t one word that means exactly the same thing in exactly the same nuance, but that’s different from “it can’t be translated.”
I get that that isn’t what the OP was saying exactly, but it just struck me as the same kind of thought process.
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It’s funny, I wrote the same thing in my last post but edited it out before posting.
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