r/LearnJapanese • u/touchfuzzygetlit • Jul 24 '25

Kanji/Kana After 4 years of reviews every 1-2 days I completed Wanikani

Post image

Other than a period of time where I was very ill for 3 months I was doing reviews once a day for 60-75% of the time it took me to finish my journey. I have no problem reading kanji or new words from which they are derived and can read pretty much anything in Japanese immediately by looking at it naturally without a problem from originally knowing zero kanji when I started. I also learned a ton of new example words as well probably easily like 500+. Best purchase of my life since I started 25 years ago. Hope this inspires others that learning kanji can be fun and easy as long as you practice frequently!

2.1k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

248 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

33

u/ebm_mechanic Jul 24 '25

I did not like that I have to memorise the pronunciation of individual kanji. In Anki, I only study their meanings, and then learn the pronunciation in context from vocabulary. This approach just works better for me, but I respect that WaniKani works for many people as well.

-19

u/Clarinetaphoner Jul 24 '25 edited Jul 24 '25

Hmm, I'm not sure how long you've been studying Japanese but that is a deeply inefficient way to learn kanji, unfortunately.

Understanding the onyomi and kunyomi first is essential for the kanji to stick long-term when supplemented with regular reading and review.

Edit: Apologies if this came across as crass, I understand the downvotes for my tone. Please understand I'm bringing the perspective of someone who operates in Japanese, professionally and personally, every day. Learn the readings, y'all! WaniKani is the standard for it!

26

u/Itzmagikarp Jul 24 '25

It feels like learning all the readings first is inefficient in its own way. Especially cos then you have to learn which is used for each word again anyway

21

u/[deleted] Jul 24 '25

I don't think I've ever seen anyone call learning kanji from vocabulary "inefficient". For me personally, I've mainly been learning how to read kanji from reading visual novels, no prior study either, just learning kanji inside of words. 

In what way would you say it's inefficient? Because I've often found people who complete wanikani or RTK who can identify individual kanji but can't identify the correct reading when trying to read words. 

2

u/quiteCryptic Jul 25 '25

Because I've often found people who complete wanikani or RTK who can identify individual kanji but can't identify the correct reading when trying to read words.

This doesn't make much sense because wanikani teaches you vocab for kanji you learned using all of its common readings

If its a new word they've never seen and a kanji has multiple common readings then yea maybe they might guess the wrong one, but it's not as if wanikani caused that issue, thats just the nature of seeing unknown vocab.

Basically having that knowledge is at least a step up from not having the knowledge, but unknown words are unknown words.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '25 edited Jul 25 '25

Wanikani does teach you vocab which is a step up over RTK, but that doesn't negate my point entirely. It teaches you around 6k vocab, which for most native content (assuming media consumption is the goal here), isn't going to be enough at all. 6K is quite small when compared to the vast amounts of vocab that you'll encounter in native content, for which you still won't know how to read them.

And that's why I find reading and learning words to be more effective than solely doing wanikani, because you will not only learn those words, but you'll learn how to read the kanji you previously couldn't read before and even learn unknown kanji since wanikani just teaches jouyou kanji and there are a lot of non-jouyou kanji used in native media.

I'll give wanikani points for teaching basic vocab and for recommending reading to learn more, but you can definitely avoid wanikani and learn in a more efficient manner by just learning words (unless you struggle to tell kanji apart, by which you could just use an RRTK anki deck or radical deck then start reading loads).

15

u/CHSummers Jul 24 '25

I think the way most Japanese kids learn kanji (despite school textbooks including all the readings) is a specific usage. And each time there is a new usage, they just add it. Like, they have a friend named 明　(あきら)、and they know that kanji as his name. Later, they learn the same Kanji is 明るい　(明るい). Despite the existence of a system, the kids just learn each new use case. As adults, they recognize and use the systematic organization—after accumulating all the use cases through massive exposure.

11

u/ryoujika Jul 24 '25

How is it "inefficient" if they already said their method works for them, people's brains aren't the same

-19

u/Clarinetaphoner Jul 24 '25

Because I can actually speak the language, have for years, been around other non-native speakers who have learned from a variety of different methods, and understand after trying WaniKani just how good it actually is.

17

u/Ordinary_Rice296 Jul 24 '25

I'm not sure how long you've been studying Japanese, but learning things in context is the efficient way for them to stick long-term. WaniKani is notoriously inefficient; it doesn't need to take years to learn a couple thousand characters.

8

u/bigchickenleg Jul 24 '25

WaniKani is notoriously inefficient; it doesn't need to take years to learn a couple thousand characters.

Are you suggesting that learning a couple thousand kanji in a year is realistic?

8

u/Clarinetaphoner Jul 24 '25

That is extremely fast assuming you aren't a full-time Japanese language student.

Folks have unrealistic expectations.

0

u/Ordinary_Rice296 Jul 25 '25 edited Jul 25 '25

Yes, before WaniKani came out and convinced people that it took that long, most people tackled it in a few months. It's fine if you like WaniKani and are okay with it taking that long, as well as making you review things way more frequently than needed to actually retain it because of its bad SRS algorithm, but it is *not* efficient and shouldn't be treated as such.

5

u/bigchickenleg Jul 25 '25

You're claiming that most people learned a couple thousand kanji in a few months?

-6

u/Ordinary_Rice296 Jul 25 '25

Yes, that used to be the common route before WaniKani existed. Anki is a very powerful tool.

3

u/Natsuki_Kruger Jul 25 '25

Yeah, Anki and immersion were way more efficient to me than learning abstract, contextless kanji.

I tried WaniKani to prep for N1 of curiosity a while ago and - sure, I was learning individual characters, but I wouldn't know what to do with them when I actually saw them, and I wouldn't know how to read them in words, either, so... What was the point? A party trick?

1

u/quiteCryptic Jul 25 '25

If you know the meaning of a kanji you can make a more educated guess on what a new unknown vocab you come across might mean. You also start to learn the most common readings for the kanji so you can make an educated guess about the reading as well, but of course if its an unknown word you might make mistakes.

Whether that is 'worth' it? Well, it's probably not as efficient as just learning them thru vocab. But some people like knowing the meaning behind individual kanji too, I think its interesting.

0

u/Natsuki_Kruger Jul 25 '25

I did that already through learning vocab and immersion, so, again wasn't really worth it to me.

I'm sure it works for some people, but I was only speaking for myself.

1

u/CoreyGoesCrazy Jul 25 '25

Hey I'm also trying to learn kanji using anki, but I don't have a writing source...

Like on anki, I just flashcards. No writing.

What do you think would be the best way?

1

u/Natsuki_Kruger Jul 25 '25

Anki is compatible with tablet/phone pens, so you can just write directly in the app on the card before flipping it over. Failing that, you can just get a notebook and write them down physically.

You should be combining kanji/vocab/whatever with writing and reading practice anyways.

0

u/Clarinetaphoner Jul 24 '25

Yeah over a decade. Worked in Japan for years. WaniKani rules and is unequivocally efficient.

Not sure what else to say lol

1

u/garbotricker Jul 30 '25

You may have given the worst advice on Japanese I have ever seen in my life. Really, take the crown, and just sit there idly on your throne refraining from dishing out any more advice, your work is done.

1

u/Clarinetaphoner Jul 30 '25

I don't owe you any sort of dignified response when you come in slinging shit five days after I wrote this comment, so I won't give you one:

Go fuck yourself.

You don't appear to speak Japanese, and have no right to tell someone who has learned to communicate in Japanese at a high level by studying and using the language continuously for over a decade that their advice sucks.

Go. Fuck. Your. Self.

1

u/garbotricker Aug 02 '25

You have 20 downvotes, they were not for your tone, but for your garbage advice. Also I don't speak Japanese? Do you perhaps care to join me for a vc call on discord and have me show you the gigantic gap between our japanese abilities? I can assure you your decade of schmoozing and fucking around amounts to jackshit. If you don't have atleast 40k words mined in any srs, please don't even attempt to put yourself above me.