I figured I would start a thread about our favorite things on WK.
So here goes:
I love that user levels tell us absolutely nothing about a user’s ability to communicate in Japanese.
There are folks at level 60 who can read kanji but cannot string sentences together, and there are people who have the foundation to construct complex sentences but lack the kanji, and then there are those with both at low levels for a number of reasons, and finally those with neither at low levels.
I love that you can actually have civilized discussions on this forum unlike twitter and youtube. We probably all have a lot of varying opinions but we’re too busy having fun with Japanese to be at each others throats.
The buzz of leveling up.
The wealth of people who can give Japanese music and anime recommendations.
The wonderful unashamed nerdyness of it all.
Read the wording of people’s posts carefully for every wee detail and trying to guess where they might come from.
If I had to pick my favorite thing about WK, though, I guess I would say the community, with the SRS implementation à close second (especially the fact I have to input stuff, and the fuzzy logic that allows some typo).
I have “learned” the Joyo kanjis many times over the past 10 years, but it’s the first time I feel them really stick (especially stuff like short o versus long o, or rendaku; it was too easy with Anki to fool myself into thinking “sure, I know it”)
So far I’d say the mnemonics already being pre-written**, the requirement to type out your answers (like @Nath, I was also able to fudge things a bit when I used Anki and other kanji-learning methods), the community resources and discussions, the gamification of it all, and the way it lends itself to steady progress (at least for me).
I’ve gone through learning kanji before, and WK has been loads more rewarding than other methods I used. It’s also just fit into my daily routine really nicely.
**I’ve had to write my own mnemonics here and there for things that don’t stick, but I’ve overall had pretty good luck with the ones WK provides.
I love that it is the only thing that keeps me coming back consistently every day. I do other things as well such as Anki and I’m doing OK-ish there but nothing compares to this. All hail the mighty
A friend of mine uses Kanji Tree, she doesn’t like Wanikani. I told her she will never get her turtles. That and of course here we have the Crabigator to watch over us.
Really though, if it weren’t for wanikani I probably wouldn’t be able to study Japanese in any meaningful way at all, given the amount of time and energy I have to devote for it. I guess it’s more accurate to say I’m just studying kanji, but I’m glad there’s a system this efficient and fun that allows me to learn something with a small time investment.