Japanese is admittedly one of the most complicated written languages to learn in the world. (Speaking Japanese is fairly straight forward but we’ll get to that another time). With tens of thousands of logographic characters called 漢字, kanji, of which, you need to know at least 2,000 to read a newspaper, it’s a lot to learn. There are a lot of language learning programs for
Bring on new in-depth experiences! And bring on WaniKani, a program based solely on memory science.
[Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in July of 2018 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.]
Disclosure: Kristenabroad.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and other affiliate programs. For some links to products or services in this article, I may earn a small commission by you using my link. The price for you is not affected.
- The Art of Memory Science
- Japanese Kanji 101: Where do I start?
- 7 Reasons Why Wanikani is Remarkable for Learning Kanji
- 1. What is WaniKani?
- 2. Why makes it efficient?
- 3. How does it work?
- 4. Why do I like Wanikani better than other systems?
- 5. Kanji learning for adults
- 6. Fast learning
- 7. Wanikani is a great tool to study for JLPT
- How much does Wanikani Cost?
- Keeping up with your reviews: A word of caution
The Art of Memory Science
Around the time I was interviewing for my position in Japan, I stumbled upon Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer. It chronicles his ascension to the 2006 US Memory Champion. First, I didn’t even know that was a thing. Second, I believe everyone could use better memory skills and I was intrigued.
My main takeaway from the book was the use of mnemonics. Creating a story, and as ridiculous of one as you can, to help you remember anything. In Joshua Foer’s case, two decks of cards in under 5 minutes. Insane! The other piece was the relation memory has with the sense of time. Why does it seem like the work year flies by but you can go away for a weekend and it can last forever? Your memory is capturing new ideas and distinguishing them from the repetitive nature of work. It all makes sense!
Wanikani adds these concepts to another cool memory trick – it is a spaced repetition system. More on that shortly.
Japanese Kanji 101: Where do I start?
Here’s my one plug to help you along (and show you some other areas of my website if you happened to stumble here by accident). You will need a basis of the syllabaries in order to use WaniKani. Japan technically has four methods of writing. Two of these are syllabaries, instead of like the English alphabet, the sounds are in syllables, hence syllabary. Over the years I’ve made myself decks of flashcards for the syllabaries: and you can learn more about katakana and hiragana.
In searching for a mnemonic-based system to enhance my skills, I came across Tofugu, a language blog that bases much of its information on memory science! Perfect! Thinking of the symbols as a picture and a story will quickly improve reading abilities (though I still, to this day, hate katakana). Tofugu’s holy grail? WaniKani.
7 Reasons Why Wanikani is Remarkable for Learning Kanji
If you are working on learning Kanji, this may be the best purchase of your life. And I wish they had an affiliate program because I can not praise this enough but low and behold, this is all just coming from me.
1. What is WaniKani?
A memory science-based system that uses mnemonics and spaced repetition system (SRS) to teach you kanji and vocabulary quickly and effectively. Each piece builds off the next. You start with radicals, the building blocks of kanji. Each has its own quirky story that Tofugu has already come up with for you (you can also create your own and include it in the notes section if you want but it’s not necessary). From there, you learn kanji by combining the mnemonics you learned from the radicals to make a story together that teaches you the meaning and reading. Once you get that, vocabulary words are built the same way. You get the drift. Build, build, build!
2. Why makes it efficient?
Many kanji have LOTS of readings. Typically in schools, you would learn ALL of those readings when first learning the kanji when you might never learn a work that is pronounced that way. Or it may take you a LONG time to get to that point. WaniKani teaches you readings as you need them.
The SRS is what REALLY makes it effective.
3. How does it work?
WaniKani is broken into 60 different levels. Encompassing what would be considered “literate”. 2000 kanji, 6000+ vocabulary words. Each level has roughly 10 radicals, 30 kanji, and 200 vocabulary words. First, you learn the mnemonics for that level items and then place them in your “review” queue and the SRS system.
There are 5 levels of progress: apprentice, guru, master, expert, and burn. Once you’ve “guru’d” 90% of that level’s kanji, you can move on to the next level. Apprentice is when you first learn the item, guru you’re starting to get it, master you have a good feel for it, and expert you basically know it and burn, you never have to see it again because you OWN it.
You’re quizzed in progressively timed intervals and if you get it correct, you go up a notch, get it wrong, you fall back down. The quiz intervals are 4 hours, 8 hours, 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, and 4 months. No cheating, you know it or you don’t.
4. Why do I like Wanikani better than other systems?
Anki is an SRS that you can create your OWN flashcard decks for whatever information you care about. You can also download other people’s “decks” to save yourself time. This is convenient because, for many Japanese textbooks (Minna No Nihongo is my favorite), people have already created the files for you. The problem I have with Anki is that you grade yourself on how well you remembered the word and I tend to lie to myself. Oh! I knew that. When really I didn’t. Later when I see it again, I have no recollection of the word at all. WaniKani’s quiz system makes it more effective.
You have to be dedicated. However, there is an option to go into “vacation mode” which will temporarily suspend the SRS. Don’t do this too long because the science doesn’t lie, you’ll start to forget if you’re gone too long. However, this is great if you just can’t get to studying. Get too far behind and the reviews can be daunting.
5. Kanji learning for adults
WaniKani teaches you easier “looking” kanji first. 口 is a lot easier to recognize than 鴻. Both of those can be pronounced “
It’s great because it doesn’t throw ridiculously complicated (by stroke number/order) kanji at you right off the bat. Fewer lines, more confidence, more learning.
6. Fast learning
I’ve had Wanikani since 2014. I’m coming clean. The first few years I was religious with it and once I got to a particular point, I started slacking off. Blame the weather and being outside more but probably more so from working on this blog more! If you keep up with your reviews mostly on schedule and answer them mostly correctly (beware of fat-fingering your keyboard or smartphone!!), you can level in about a week. 60 levels, 60 weeks. Just over a year isn’t bad at all!
At the original time of writing this post, I had been working with WaniKani for 2.5 years and very thoroughly could say that I know 800 kanji. Not including the mountains of vocabulary that Wanikani gives you as well. It takes Japanese children till 4th grade (ish) to do that. That’s what makes this system so impressive.
To further convince you – consider this. Japanese children learn just over 1000 kanji during elementary school with the next 1100 learned through secondary (middle/high) school. That’s 12 years to learn the 2136 most used kanji, or jōyō kanji (常用漢字)! If you keep up with your reviews, you can learn most of that in 1.5-2 years. You will most certainly be in a better position than if you’d followed most traditional learning methods – schools in America don’t get you nearly as far!
7. Wanikani is a great tool to study for JLPT
If you are attempting to tackle the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), WaniKani is an amazing tool to help you get there. A quick rundown of the JLPT if you aren’t familiar with it. There are 5 levels of exams, N5 is the easiest and N1 is the hardest. Prior to 2010, there were only 4 levels, with the new system, N3 was added to “bridge the gap” between the easier and hard levels. Kanji isn’t the only thing you need to know obviously, but it definitely helps you!
N5 has about 80 kanji you must master, N4 adds an additional ~180, N3 and N2 each have another approximately 380 kanji with N1 topping out with 1230 more. Since WaniKani is teaching you “as an adult” you end up learning kanji from all 5 levels very quickly as opposed to more traditional methods teaching you in order of level.
Curious where you might stand JLPT-wise? You’ll know all of N5 kanji by level 16 (not fast enough for you? You’ll be 95% there at level 8); N4 is level 27 which seems far but you’ll be 90% there around level 13; N3 and N2 to have mastered all the kanji you will be at level 50. Levels 50 – 60 will just keep adding more to your N1 repertoire. That said, you will need additional resources for N1 as there are around 260 kanji that WaniKani does not teach you.
How much does Wanikani Cost?
To start with – and particularly why I recommend it (reminder, I am NOT an affiliate or anything, this is just coming from me loving the app so much), the first 3 levels are free! In as little as 3 weeks, you could be on the way to knowing almost 100 kanji and over 200 vocabulary words. And you can read them! Give it a try!! Even if you don’t have aspirations of learning Japanese, trying out the system is fun and an interesting way to learn.
Past that, the costs are quite reasonable. At the time of updating this post, you have a choice of monthly ($9/month), annual ($89/year), or springing for lifetime access ($299/once). If it’s around Christmas time, look out for deals as they generally have been giving them at all levels.
Keeping up with your reviews: A word of caution
The reviews may seem slow at first but don’t be fooled, it catches up quickly if you aren’t working on them every day. Expect several hundred at a time to get through as you progress up. Here again, lies the beauty of memory science and the spaced repetition system – you’ll find yourself getting very fast and “knowing” i.e. fluency for the terms.
If it gets out of hand though due to life, along with the pause function I mentioned earlier, there’s also a “reset” button. Which is not for the faint of heart – you can’t undo it! That said, I wanted a clean start to my learning – and figured it couldn’t hurt the refresh – so I restarted at ground zero.
And you know what? I love it, even more, this time around.
Pin this for later
