While many people are skeptical of mnemonics at first, stories are one of the few things we humans are good at memorizing (now where did I put my keys?). Not a moment of rote memorization in sight. Finally, you’ll use your new-found kanji knowledge to learn vocabulary words. Then, you’ll use the radicals to make a story to learn a kanji’s meaning and reading. You’ll use a mnemonic to learn the radical. These are little stories to help you to remember the meaning and/or reading of each item. MnemonicsĮvery radical, kanji, and vocabulary word you learn on WaniKani comes paired with a hand-crafted mnemonic written by one of our loving staff. It doesn’t take long to see our focus on the long-term pay off. But, a couple months in you’ll know all these common kanji, plus a couple hundred more. And, you’re not overwhelmed by something with 13 strokes right from the start.īy doing this, you do miss out on some super common kanji right in the beginning. This way we can teach you more complicated kanji (in structure) using your knowledge of simpler kanji. So, we go the other way: more simply structured kanji, even if the meaning is too difficult for a kindergartener to understand. WaniKani assumes you’re an adult, or at least not an elementary school student. Even if the structure of a kanji is more complicated (that is, more strokes), they are more likely to learn it if the kanji’s meaning is simple and common. This makes sense because Japanese kids are just that: kids. Japanese children learn kanji in order of both usefulness and how simple the meaning of the kanji is, not how simple the structure is. Kanji Learning for Adults, not Japanese Children Of course, how we do that is important to know, and that will be covered in the next few sections. On Wanikani, we consistently get members to ~2,000 kanji in one or two years. Using traditional methods, a university student may learn ~1,000 kanji in four years (if they’re really, really lucky). We throw away short-term gains so you can reach that finish line faster. For us, that’s about 2,000 kanji (that’s most of the Joyo kanji, plus some others) and 6,000 useful vocabulary words. The WaniKani system is focused on the finish line. Here’s how we do it: A Focus on the Finish Line So if all learning is hard, what makes WaniKani different? We took the incredibly difficult task of learning kanji (what to learn, when to learn it, how to learn it, etc) and simplified it so you can just sit down and do steps 1-3. If you want to feel like you’re learning without gaining substance you can go anywhere. But, if you actually want to learn something, and learn it to real fluency… it’s going to be hard. The word “easy” is a word copywriters use to get you to buy their language learning product, be it textbook, audio program, or app. In order to do this, all you need to do is: Of course, you’ll still need to know what to type, so make sure you’ve brushed up on how to type in Japanese.If you try WaniKani, you’ll be able to complete the incredibly simple task of learning ~2,000 kanji (both meaning and reading) and 6,000+ Japanese vocabulary words. Once you get used to it, though, your brain will be able to recognize what’s being asked for, and you won’t have to actively think about it ever again! If you’re still having trouble figuring out what WaniKani wants, slow down! It will take a couple hours, maybe even a few days to get used to this system. Likewise, if you start to type “こう” and end up looking at “kou” you need to look again! If you aren’t sure if WaniKani is asking for a Reading or a Meaning, there are quite a few ways to figure it out: Kanji ReadingĪnother hint to help you out: If we’re asking for the Reading for the kanji 口, and you try to type the answer “mouth” and it looks like “もうth” you’ll know it’s the wrong one! That means you need to be able to type, spell, and understand kanji and vocabulary words. The Meaning is the English definition of the kanji or vocabulary word.ĭuring your reviews, WaniKani will ask you to provide the readings and meanings for kanji and vocabulary separately. The Reading is the Japanese pronunciation of the kanji or vocabulary word. For starters, they have two parts to them: Readings and Meanings. Kanji and vocabulary work a little bit differently than radicals. You’ve gotten through the first batch of radicals and unlocked your first kanji.
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