Hi lovelies, as the title asks I’m wondering whether or not I should be spending time at the start of each lesson memorising the new vocabulary.
I only started working through Minna no Nihongo once I reached level 10 on WaniKani. While it’s been good, as I do know a good chunk of words already used, there are a lot of words, and kanji I haven’t come across yet on WK.
Don’t get me wrong I understand that I need to learn all these words properly eventually. I’m just wondering if I should actually be stopping the grammar lessons to try to memorise each new lessons new vocab. As I’m concerned doing that, on top of WK, and everything else in life will burn me out.
Am I shooting myself in the foot by not taking the time to memorise the vocab for each lesson; or am I better off just working through the grammar, while still using WK as my main source of vocab?
Having gone through MNN a couple years ago, I will say all the words in MNN1 are useful, will be used in everyday Japanese conversation. WK teaches you kanji and vocab related to that kanji but that doesn’t mean they are the words used in every day conversation in Japan.
While (IMO) they should take precedence over WK’s vocab, they largely take care of themselves in terms of “needing to memorize them”. As in they are used so frequently that you will run into them a lot and probably don’t need to stress about drilling them in your brain.
So the answer is kind of in the middle, but WK should not be your main source of vocab as its structured around Kanji and not use. A textbook is teaching you these words to get you towards some level of proficiency in the language, WK is just teaching you kanji, which will make you better able to read Japanese but thats it.
I used another Textbook, but I also didn’t learn the vocabulary beforehand. Every few Chapter I reached a Point Where I couldn’t do the exercises anymore because I knew too few words and Had to Look Up too many. It was very exhausting. If you reach that Point don’t force yourself to continue. You could Change to another Textbook for repetition or trying to read a book.