Hello!
I have been learning japanese now for half a year with a course but we only have 1h 30min lessons per week and that is not enough for me. I know everybody is different in learning languages but is there anybody who just learns with Wanikani and if yes how long are you already using it and how much did you improve?
Wanikani is amazing with building up your vocabulary and the amount of kanjis you recognize. I would still recommend on practicing the grammar and doing listening comprehension. I personally read NHK easy Japanese news, use a text book and practice grammar with another text book.
Duolingo and LingoDeer are pretty cool apps too. Alongside these I watch animes or listen to Japanese music and try to translate the lyrics etc. Just try to study in diverse ways and find the sites/apps/books that fit your taste!
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Wanikani main focus is to teach you Kanji. It won’t teach you grammar, not it will give you listening/reading practice.
Wanikani is the best tool in terms of learning kanji, but you’ll need more tools in order to reach fluency in Japanese.
Here’s a very good list gathered by WK users:
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Just WaniKani won’t get you very far. My level 27 butt failed the N5. Reading anything is still a struggle. My lack of grammar and vocab is 
, and WaniKani won’t fix that.
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Thank you very much for your answers and recommendations! I will try out some things you listed.
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Did it help you with learning Kanji?
Yeah, definitely help with kanji knowledge. But knowing a lot of kanji isn’t too helpful with understanding that one volume of Doraemon I’ve been trying to read.
I definitely need to get better about my non-Kanji studies.
I’ve completed tae kim half year ago and i recognize most of kanji on web pages, facebook and so on. My speaking abilities suck due to lack of practice tho. Currently i do only wanikani because i have to prepare for exams in order to get into a university. So, in my opinion, tae kim is your essential grammar. Other grammar points can be learned while reading new stuff.
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Wanikani is an amazing resource for learning kanji (and vocab) but when I was living in Japan I absolutely needed to supplement my study with other things (I had a Japanese tutor who helped out with my grammar and speaking, alongside text book study from Genki/JLPT Guides).
But if your main goal or weakness is kanji, there really isn’t any better resource!
My advice is to use a grammar book written in your native tongue. Turkish for instance it’s very similar to Japan in particle rules so a Turkish grammar book is better imo.
Also you seem to have a goal. Are you short in time?
You are 100% correct. One and a half hours per week isn’t really sufficient to learn anything to a level of proficiency.
I recommend at least an hour EVERY DAY. I wrote every day in caps because that is the part that is key. If you learned something even for only 15min every day that still has value. More than than 1h 45m once a week.
There may well be people who only use WK. But all that will give them is kanji knowledge. I recommend a little bit of bunpro every day and a good Anki listening deck. That’s a baseline learning plan. Then there’s consuming Japanese content be it anime, manga or whatever.
My biggest piece of advice would be never lose contact with the reason that you decided to learn Japanese. Most likely it’s related to the joy and fascination that their culture provoke in you. It’s very easy to start taking this thing very seriously and lose sight of that. Always aim to push yourself a little bit but make haste slowly. I burned out twice since starting last August and it made me neglect my studies for a few days at time until I remembered my childlike fascination with this beautiful and bizarre language.
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Thank you that is so great!
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Thank you for your answer! Actually I`m learning everyday or let me say reviewing what I learned from my teacher. But that course is only once a week and we don´t learn as much as I hoped so because some students are slowlier than me. Now I´m searching for some websites to learn that what I wanted to accomplish from the beginning.
Also thank you very much for your advice and I hope that you won´t burn out anymore.
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I speak german and we don´t have that good japanese learning books so I have to rely on english written ones. Also I am a student that means I don´t have the money to buy so expensive books. (plus I already have some at home but they are so bad written that learning from them is horrifying!)
My goal is to speak Japanese as good as possibly and with 1h30min per week I don´t accomplish that what I know I could. I love languages and for me learning them is really easy. I know I could learn more than what I´m learning now. I am not short in time. I know I am able to learn more and so I want to learn much more than what I am already doing in my course. That maybe sounds crazy.
Thank you for your answer
Thank you.
Good luck with your studies. I
I feel this way too. I never found it crazy impossible to learn the languages I already know. Just keep in mind though that Japanese is somewhat more taxing than the average European language. Even the more complex ones like German or the Slavic languages look like Esperanto compared to Japanese. I once watched a youtube video where this guy advised people to study, write or whatever for a set amount of time and finish at that time even if you still feel like blazing ahead. It helps you keep gas in the tank.
How good would you be at English if you only ever studied phonics?
WK helps increase your literacy, and that’s essential, but that’s meaningless if you can’t nest that knowledge within the actual grammar and logic of the language. WK is an amazing program for kanji, but it doesn’t teach you Japanese.
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