Various threads supporting or disparaging WK seem to come up every now and then but now that I’m several months past my WK journey\*(see footnote) I just briefly wanted to share my thoughts. Oerall I feel like I’m extremely grateful to my past self for powering through (most of) WaniKani and also grateful for the team that put it together. But it’s not perfect.
WaniKani pitfalls:
1. Nonstandard radical names. “Wolverine,” “Poop” etc are kind of silly and don’t really fit with RTK schema.
2. Example sentences are generally terrible, and don’t have audio or furigana. Most example sentences are like insider jokes and I didn’t find them helpful. In fact I ignored them, but at least they didn’t slow me down.
3. The mnemonics to remember complex Kanji don’t build on other Kanji that are already taught. For instance, 慨 (sigh, lament) is taught as being comprised of as soul忄, root 艮, and fang 牙, rather than more simply as soul忄and already/long ago 既. I can learn “the soul of long ago” as “lament” very easily but soul-root-fang doesn’t make any sense without coming up with a contorted and overly complicated mnemonic. That is just one example but there are several like it.
4. Additionally, I find the web-based interface and needing to type the answers very cumbersome. There are various methods to bypass this thankfully.
5. Not a con per-se, but: It’s important to note that WaniKani does NOT teach you how to read Japanese. That takes hundreds of hours of practice after finishing (or while doing) WK. It also doesn’t help at all with talking.
6. Monthly fee. Many people feel learning materials should be free but the monthly fee is quite reasonable in my opinion. I have no problem buying books/audiobooks/etc and WK is no different. Fortunately I have a career and am older than most people here I bet so the nominal fee is not an issue thankfully.
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OK, now on to the pros:
1. It is a standard system where if you power through and do your daily dose month after month after month you will learn most jouyou Kanji.
2. The vocabulary might seem esoteric sometimes but overall I think the words are carefully chosen to emphasize both Kun and On readings, as well as irregular readings that are in common use.
3. You end up with several thousand useful vocabulary words and have the ability to read new words without much difficulty. For instance, the word 死体安置所 is not in WaniKani as far as I know, but the individual Kanji’s are all pretty basic and I was able to read it and deduce its meaning in the context of a book without losing a beat. Death-body-peace-put-place – in other words, a morgue. All with standard On readings.
4. Some of the mnemonics are pretty good. I might have laughed out loud a few times.
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Recently I’ve seen a few posts saying either asking “do I need to learn Kanji” or “Kanji is slowing me down” or “I can’t remember Kanji.” My answer is that Kanji is absolutely essential and once you know common Kanji learning new vocabulary is orders of magnitude easier. So if you are having trouble with learning Kanji, then WK is my first recommendation.
And finally, I’m sure WK is NOT the most efficient way. Cramming RTK and reading a ton is probably more efficient, and if I had to do it over that might be the optimal way to do it.
It took me about 14 months to do WK (see below). I have been learning Japanese for a little less than 2 years (about 19 months) and I can now read most books with the help of Yomichan. Read about 12 books so far in 2022, currently reading a long mystery. I’m a slow reader, read about 6,000 ~~cpm~~ (EDIT: cph =characters per hour) when going smoothly but aim for 100% comprehension. Mined about 10,000 cards and have >2200 unique Kanji in my mined deck for whatever that’s worth. I feel that I owe my solid base of Kanji to WK – thank you!
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\*Footnote: I completed about 50/60 lessons in WK. At that point I found that it was no longer worth it time-wise as I would rather spend the time reading in Japanese and most of the “new” Kanji I had already come across reading. Good luck!
39 comments
Liking WK isn’t a controversial opinion. It’s one of the most highly regarded tools we have
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WaniKani is great. I tried other methods (most notably RTK) and it convinced me that learning kanji is impossible and my brain simply can’t handle it. WK saved my Japanese learning life and turned what was my biggest weakness at the time into a strength.
WK has become a part of my daily routine. It always feels nice to level up and start seeing those kanji out in the wild.
I use wanikani. Have nothing but good things to say
ok yeah but you can do all of that for free and at whatever pace you would like with anki. WK is just nice UI with a limited SRS system
I completed level 60 a short while ago. It’s got plenty of problems and plenty of room for improvement, but I think it’s the best kanji learning tool around right now.
the only controversial thing about Wanikani is that its too slow and its just a worse version of Anki in general
Wanikani was the thing that finally helped kanji start to click for me. It definitely has its flaws but every app/tool does and I’m very glad I started using it. I flew completely through the kanji section of my JLPT exam and I always expected the kanji section to be the hardest.
Full disclosure: I’m still a relative beginner, but I’d still like to offer my two cents in regards to your comment about learning Kanji being essential.
Learning Kanji definitely *is* essential, but I feel like the common advice to grind it out right after learning kana isn’t appropriate for everyone. I spent *years* starting new Kanji programs, going strong for a month or two, and then burning out. At least for me, it’s hard to stay interested because it’s simply *not fun.*
Earlier this year I finally changed my approach and starting studying Genki, learning Kanji only in the context of the textbook’s vocabulary. Now that I have a basic foundation, I’ve started studying Kanji again, and it’s *so* much better. The characters I’m learning actually have signifiance because I can relate them to words and phrases I’m already familiar with. There’s *context*, and context works wonders to help keep things enjoyable.
TL;DR Learning Kanji is *extremely* important, but that doesn’t mean it should necessarily be an immediate top priority for absolute beginners.
Is it worth the price?
I put down people not liking WaniKani to the fact that it does not fit their study style. Personally, I have found it very useful and I learn quickly and easily from it.
I agree that the example sentences need at least furigana, as I ignored them completely until about level 20 since I didn’t understand them anyway, but now I appreciate their nonsensical humour. There is a lot of serious sentence examples out there already, so this is a nice change.
As for the radical names, some of them are silly, but I have since learned that there is no single radical naming system and many teaching resources come up with their own naming systems so it’s not that bad. They are “training wheels” anyway. In some cases I have come up with alternative mnemonics that work better for me, but it doesn’t mean the ones suggested by WK won’t be helpful to someone.
>And finally, I’m sure WK is NOT the most efficient way. Cramming RTK and reading a ton is probably more efficient, and if I had to do it over that might be the optimal way to do it.
This confuses me. If you’re sure, why are you glad you went through Wanikani rather than doing that?
After watching Nichijou I am feeling like those context sentences were written by Keiichi himself.
That said, yes I like WK. I stopped at level 27 but plan to resume soon after the JLPT exam. Unfortunately it’s quite unusable without 3rd party scripts (dark theme, cram mode, stats, ordering by SRS/level stage etc., lesson limit etc.).
The context sentences are understandable imho only if you know plenty of vocabulary in advance, even just in kana. Eg. I only felt comfortable reading and internalising those after finishing my N3 deck (which means studying roughly 1500 words outside of WK).
I’m a big fan of WK, but I’d disagree with you on two points
* The web interface and having to type in answers – to me that is one of the great advantages of WK!
* Being “less efficient than cramming RTK”. Obviously it is impossible to do a controlled experiment because any one person can only follow one path, but I would be very surprised if RTK is superior. I think that the way WK carefully teaches you both meanings and readings and then gives you a bunch of vocab to reinforce everything makes it a lot better over the long run.
Also pro tip on the monthly fee – you can just subscribe for a year, race up to level 60 and then upgrade to a Lifetime membership for cheap. That’s what I ended up doing pretty much on accident (since they don’t advertise these deals).
I will second the mnemonics. Whoever is writing them has a very absurdist sense of humor that has made me laugh out loud many times. They definitely stick in your head and make it easier to memorize things.
I’m glad I did it too.
how is this controversial?
I think WaniKani is good, but it’s a sink or swim type of thing. You have to do it *constantly* or the retention will go away and you will simply forget. And you have to do it along with concurrent reading as well.
I’m almost to level 20 and I love Wanikani. I am starting to transition to reviewing a mixture of Wanikani, my own Anki deck of stuff I encounter in the wild while reading, and Satori Reader’s built-in SRS. But Wanikani was absolutely instrumental for me to build enough of a base of common kanji that I felt okay really transitioning to reading and grammar and wasn’t immediately overwhelmed and distracted by a bunch of unfamiliar kanji.
I completed WK around 2 months ago. I consider it the absolute best kanji learning resource, and I’m so thankful for what it’s taught me. That being said, I couldn’t be more happy it’s finally over. My thumbs being sore from typing hundreds of words in endless sessions, the constant dread of becoming busy in real life and knowing my reviews are stockpiling, the impatience and frustration of one or two screw ups holding you back from leveling up (I really started cheering it towards the end), and now that it’s over it feels weird to not need to religiously check for reviews all day. If you’ve got the drive and know you truly want to do this, I can’t recommend WK enough. Just be aware what you’re getting yourself into!
I’m only on level 3 and it’s my favorite of the learning apps so far. My brain is weird and it’s hard for me to memorize things without just tons of repetition. I wish the wanikani system had tools for learning hiragana and katakana just because I like the way its structured.
Let me add a (possible) con: The radicals already have Japanese names. Like、the little bar at the top of grass( 草) is kusa-kanmuri (grass crown). If we just learned the Japanese versions early on, we could more easily discuss kanji with Japanese people.
It’s not perfect, but it has taught me more kanji than anything else.
> needing to type the answers very cumbersome. There are various methods to bypass this thankfully.
I love the need to type the answers, on my home PC anyway. It’s a chore on my phone. But with a proper keyboard, I type pretty fast, both the English meanings and hiragana readings. The muscle memory of typing seems to help.
I also use a script that lets me retype answers, so I can try to remember multiple meanings and/or readings, when available. It also gives me a chance to fix typos, or get a do-over if I type a valid synonym that wanikani doesn’t accept, or to intentionally fail a meaning or reading I guessed correctly, when I know I didn’t really know the word.
I’m currently level 25, so not quite halfway to 60.
Very nice summary! I agree on the pros and cons. I wouldn’t say RTK is faster, though since one doesn’t really learn kanji readings through it. That’s where WaniKani wins :).
But for instance to me the cons outweighed the pros and I quit at level 42. Doing Anki turned out to be way more productive.
I have ADHD and have regularly kept up with WK for almost a year. It’s not for everyone, but it works for me and I haven’t gotten burned out on it.
One of the main problems of wanikani for me is the inability to learn in the order I need and to add kanji, which are not in the 60 levels. Along with learning kanji, I read a lot and I often came across kanji from later wanikani levels or kanji missing in wanikani that I would like to memorize. I don’t really see how you can combine wanikani with reading content not adapted to its levels, and waiting 1+ year to start reading would be too long.
KameSame is the best, in my opinion 😊
I don’t understand why WaniKani makes you learn 金玉… WHY do I need to learn that word?
I think I definitely could push Kanji more organically in thr short run but for the long haul I honestly need the level system and I need a “you have x reviews remaining” to focus me every day. Japanese is hella fun but I’m just so tired lately after work and I need the structure 😛
I was initially put off from trying it by their own descriptions of how it works:
‘You’ll use a mnemonic to learn the radical. Then, you’ll use the radicals to make a story to learn a kanji’s meaning and reading.’
Well, I am on level 9 and I haven’t read a single mnemonic or story. That part is totally skippable. I’m not sure if as the kanji get harder I will need to try reading them. I kind of don’t want their story to crowd my brain and just come up with my own ways to remember things, which I put in the notes.
I have learned a lot in a short time, so I guess it’s working for me. I thought I already knew about 300 kanji but this has shown me was that I knew only the meaning or only some kun readings for all those kanji I ‘knew’. I guess I was too easy on myself with the flashcards, if I knew either the meaning or the a kun reading I put it in the ‘I know it’ pile. I knew very few on readings. I struggled a lot with wanikani at first because it took a while to grasp the idea that I needed to learn the on readings and that they actually matter. Saw a lot of those ‘we want the other reading’ messages.
Tbh WaniKani is great especially when starting out with kanji imo, I’m still working at it but it definitely has helped me a lot on my road to learning kanji.
But I also recently came to the conclusion that even with WaniKani I should start to pick up stuff to read in order to immerse myself more into kanji and use the kanji I have learnt along with learn new kanjis as well.
Would love some reading recommendations if you have any.
Thanks, you just reminded me I have a lifetime Wanikani account that I’ve been neglecting. It’s not my main focus of study anymore, as I’m more interested in reading and writing now, but I should really just get back into the habit of doing it.
Which mystery?
I am way more satisfied with my wanikani purchase than duolingo. Duo feels like rote memorisation of set phrases, whereas WK feels like it’s actually giving me the tools to let me construct the meaning and reading from unfamiliar content which imo is far more valuable. Plus I find it more fun to go through than duo.
I’m level 7 on WK and 370 days in duo, I wish I started WK back then I feel like id be way further ahead than I am now.
Does CPM stand for Characters Per Minute? 6000 per minute is quite the pace
I liked WK but I ultimately ended up dropping it after getting to the mid 30s. After a while I felt like it was just better to read native material and the review process is just extremely time consuming if you want to do things at a good pace.
Wait what would you do instead of typing the answer?
Also learning resources on the web are rarely free. You normally either pay in money or data. Also developing a website/app is really more work than many people think. Even developing a very simple App will usually cost 20.000$ upwards (if you hire someone). So unless you are pretty rich to begin with you often can’t even afford to make something for free.
Idk I just think its annoying that so many people always complain about Apps costing something…like yeah I bet you’d also like to get paid for your work right?
As someone who had one horrible teacher make me give up on kanji for years, WK was the first tool I found that compensated for my weaknesses in studying (i.e. being upfront with reminders about when reviews are due, holding accountable on wrong answers, etc). It also showed me that kanji learning did not need to be the brute force process I was taught. Nothing compares in my Japanese journey so far than realizing the sheer size of kanji I can now recognize in the wild. And WK was a huge part of that for me. I recommend it to everyone I can.
As OP said, it’s not a perfect tool, and it won’t help with every facet of the language. But for what it says on the package, it does every bit in my experience. WK 100% revived my interest and progress in the language.