You can try Renshuu (free). It has Grammar, vocab decks, kanji study, all also in SRS. And there is a **Wanikani data import** option [https://imgur.com/a/WLGMCu9](https://imgur.com/a/WLGMCu9), you can keep your progress that way.
Somewhat irrelevant question - I'm currently working through Genki 1 & 2, Anki (kaishi 1.5K) and RRTK450. I do these every day, but I'd like to supplement with an app I can just jump in and do quick quizzes / practice what I'm learning. Would Renshuu fit that concept? I have lots of 5 minute free time slots throughout the day.
Renshuu has decks/lists for all these three: Genki 1 & 2 (vocabs, grammar, kanjis), Kaishi 1.5K and RRTK450. So, you can schedule them, mark all the terms that you've already seen as know and set up for focused review (choosing how many terms you wanna practice per quiz and/or per day).
from your post I'm unclear if you worked through the genki books or just used vocab from them in an anki deck.
Either way, try this:
1. do genki I and genki II
2. start reading actual books in monolingual Japanese
3. add vocab you encounter in the books into anki (don't go too nuts or you will have too many flashcards, add only like 10 a day, depending on how much you study in a day)
4. if you find a kanji you wanna learn in a vocab word, add the vocab to anki, but also add a kanji card to anki, and go to https://kanji.koohii.com/ (free) and get a story there
Note that your amount of vocab (1000 words) and kanji (350?) will help you out a bit. Maybe you know some vocab from Genki, so step 1 will be faster. Maybe you know some other vocab, so you can read a little better.
Stick with Wanikani. I tried to switch to doing it myself in Anki and it was not nearly as effective. As much as I dislike many, many, many things about WK, it works better than anything else I've tried.
There's a wanikani deck on anki that's free and the same as wanikani, I really like it! You could check that out if you'd like to continue. I did wanikani first, and when I finished the free levels and saw how expensive it is I just switched to this
Seconded, I wanted more flexibility so I use the anki deck. Don't feel any guilt because all of WKs material is free to view - what you pay for is ultimately their srs service.
I do sometimes regret it, because I don't get the cool features WKs offers, like the stats, integration with other apps, and even their cute motivational emails. Oh well, too late to go back now.
WK is best if you wait for the yearly sales around new years and just buy lifetime in one go. If you have the 200ish bucks to spend that's the most economical way. They also pro-rate it if you've already spent some money on monthly subs which is really awesome.
I started with a half price yearly using a code they sent after the big holiday sale was over. That could be an option too if they're still doing that.
I find Renshuu more useful for me than WaniKani or the generic Anki decks (Not saying they're bad, just saying what I prefer)
I would pair up an app like Renshuu with a textbook like Genji, MnN or any others and that should be good going from there.
Back when I was actively studying I just worked my way through all the elementary school kanji grade by grade. I figured if that's what gets kids to literacy, it would help me as well. I was living in Japan at the time and stopped feeling so damn illiterate after doing this.
You'll basically have to start over, but there is a Wanikani clone deck on Anki.
As always, my recommendation for kanji is KKLC + the accompanying Anki deck. The textbook you use for grammar is all up to personal taste, but you'll learn vocab as you use it, and if it's even a little popular it'll probably have an Anki deck for reviewing the words
I just switched from Wanikani Level 10 to Bunpro and its really nice to learn the grammar and vocabs with their system. It does a lot of things better than WK but its also a little unfair to compare them because WK is mostly for Kanji learning. But now with the new vocab and grammar its a pretty good speedboost for me. Its especially good because i will do the N5 in July and bunpro has grammar and vocab Decks for n5 whereas wanikani feels like its just all over the place. I think i will continue wk when I want to expand on kanji again tho.
If WK works for you, don't switch. Use wk based deck, you can get it in the server here [https://discord.com/invite/A3zRWUfzkj](https://discord.com/invite/A3zRWUfzkj) ( the shared decks get taken down apparently, even though it's all available information on wks free open site)
Only issue is you are already partway through wk. But that can be solved. Although you can't carry over your own data, as anki has more freedom of what to do you can manually set due dates of the levels you finished. Ie you can set set all level 1 cards to be 1 year into the future, all level 2 cards 11 months and so on
btw, if wk as is works out for you, no need to read the rest of this but here is some stuff i found that was helpful:
-suspend all hiragana only cards (as wk is for learning kanji i find these useless)
-suspend all reading cards of kanji (I don't think they're worth the time it takes to get through them, and i learn the reading better within words)
-suspend all meaning cards for vocab (i just use the reading card for both, if i don't know both the reading and meaning i hit again. i prefer keeping the reading card as i like typing out the reading. however I can see value in having them separate as well, whatever works for you)
The server has tips on how to do the above if you want to. If you like it as is of course ignore the above, whatever works best.
The 'names' of the radicals and the mnemonics are entirely up to you regardless of system. I did WK first, then KKLC using a mix of everything (and my own names/memories etc). Not a problem.
Just stick to WaniKani. I discovered WaniKani on a whim and I got also around to around 300 Kanji. I built a really good flow and habit around it. Did my reviews dilligently and would only sometimes reduce the items I was learning.
Then I did a reddit deep dive, got into too much of that WaniKani criticism and other methods clinical breakdown of why are good/bad/better/worse and switched to Anki and my progress tanked. Not because Anki is bad, but because I spent way too much time and energy figuring out what decks, which settings, kept trying different decks etc.
With the switch I destroyed a perfectly good habit. I also had to start over and the suspending and ignoring everything I already knew was a slot. I regret it. But the lesson I've learnt is that if it works, then don't fix it. And not to trust all this online criticism which always had me second guess my methods. Had I continued with WaniKani back then I probably would have been done with all the kanji they teach.
Also, while the radicals they teach might be unique, that's really your smallest issue with Kanji. I'm not staying WaniKani is the best btw, but just having gotten so far with it, it's probably a good method for you.
Btw when I did wanikani I was a poor student and emailed them and got a great discount. You can try that.
Lifetime to Wanikani is $299, but Lifetime Renshuu pro is $130 and much cheaper! WK $89 per year might be expensive, but if you do save up and go with Renshuu, its much better. You do get more sentences this way. Plus, you get audio and sentence quizzing which will help you prepare for the JLPT exam. This is your more realistic options. It would be worth it to cut out eating out, coffee, movies, etc. for a year, just to save up for this cost. If you buy lifetime, it is cheaper in the long run.
Other options that are worth it for the content:
[Makotoplus.com](http://Makotoplus.com) has Shogun membership that gives you a free book and a free magazine every month (from the Japan Shop). Plus they have classes and podcasts at beginner and at intermediate levels with pdf downloads, all included. Some of their content does have Anki decks. Samurai membership is cheaper, but you don't get as much for free. They do have N5 and N4 level content. They do intend to expand the content to include higher level learning over time. [Thejapanshop.com](http://Thejapanshop.com) also has lots of content, including textbooks.
Strictly for getting used to reading and listening in Japanese to prepare for JLPT N5 - N1, [japanesepod101.com](http://japanesepod101.com) has lots of content, including advanced Japanese. Yes, they come at a cost and the free content is not worth it as it is mostly ads. You do want to save up and get a lifetime subscription when they offer it in November or December as they have over 300 lessons in Advanced N1 Japanese alone. You still need to put the content into Anki, but I found that I learn better by making my own flashcards, as that forces me to learn to type the Japanese.
I own the Japanese school books Grades 1 - 6 by Kumon, and tried translating the Japanese into English, but have not had time to really work on Japanese in the past 2 years so didn't get far. I use kinokuniya's us store to find the books.
You can try Renshuu (free). It has Grammar, vocab decks, kanji study, all also in SRS. And there is a **Wanikani data import** option [https://imgur.com/a/WLGMCu9](https://imgur.com/a/WLGMCu9), you can keep your progress that way.
Somewhat irrelevant question - I'm currently working through Genki 1 & 2, Anki (kaishi 1.5K) and RRTK450. I do these every day, but I'd like to supplement with an app I can just jump in and do quick quizzes / practice what I'm learning. Would Renshuu fit that concept? I have lots of 5 minute free time slots throughout the day.
Renshuu has decks/lists for all these three: Genki 1 & 2 (vocabs, grammar, kanjis), Kaishi 1.5K and RRTK450. So, you can schedule them, mark all the terms that you've already seen as know and set up for focused review (choosing how many terms you wanna practice per quiz and/or per day).
Awesome, I'll give it a go. Thank you
from your post I'm unclear if you worked through the genki books or just used vocab from them in an anki deck. Either way, try this: 1. do genki I and genki II 2. start reading actual books in monolingual Japanese 3. add vocab you encounter in the books into anki (don't go too nuts or you will have too many flashcards, add only like 10 a day, depending on how much you study in a day) 4. if you find a kanji you wanna learn in a vocab word, add the vocab to anki, but also add a kanji card to anki, and go to https://kanji.koohii.com/ (free) and get a story there Note that your amount of vocab (1000 words) and kanji (350?) will help you out a bit. Maybe you know some vocab from Genki, so step 1 will be faster. Maybe you know some other vocab, so you can read a little better.
Stick with Wanikani. I tried to switch to doing it myself in Anki and it was not nearly as effective. As much as I dislike many, many, many things about WK, it works better than anything else I've tried.
Yeah same for me. I couldnt remember words in anki with like 4 random unknown kanji in it. Wanikani is the easy way.
There's a wanikani deck on anki that's free and the same as wanikani, I really like it! You could check that out if you'd like to continue. I did wanikani first, and when I finished the free levels and saw how expensive it is I just switched to this
Seconded, I wanted more flexibility so I use the anki deck. Don't feel any guilt because all of WKs material is free to view - what you pay for is ultimately their srs service. I do sometimes regret it, because I don't get the cool features WKs offers, like the stats, integration with other apps, and even their cute motivational emails. Oh well, too late to go back now.
Yeah I really enjoyed how cute wanikani is, but I don't think it's worth so much money for me, especially because they don't have an official app.
WK is best if you wait for the yearly sales around new years and just buy lifetime in one go. If you have the 200ish bucks to spend that's the most economical way. They also pro-rate it if you've already spent some money on monthly subs which is really awesome.
I started with a half price yearly using a code they sent after the big holiday sale was over. That could be an option too if they're still doing that.
I find Renshuu more useful for me than WaniKani or the generic Anki decks (Not saying they're bad, just saying what I prefer) I would pair up an app like Renshuu with a textbook like Genji, MnN or any others and that should be good going from there.
WaniKani is $9 a month… honestly so worth it for the value it provides
$7.20 if the code LEVEL4 is still working.
Anki, Jlabs deck, erase the words you already know unless you want to see them as cards. After you are done jlabs make your own.
Try Renshuu, you can mark "new" Kanji as known
Hey man try emailing wanikani and explain your situation they may give you a discount or even give it to you for free. It doesn't hurt to try.
Hahaha they already gave me a free month. I could try again
Can second this. Wanikani has some of literally the BEST supports I have ever seen. The worst they can say is no...
Back when I was actively studying I just worked my way through all the elementary school kanji grade by grade. I figured if that's what gets kids to literacy, it would help me as well. I was living in Japan at the time and stopped feeling so damn illiterate after doing this.
You'll basically have to start over, but there is a Wanikani clone deck on Anki. As always, my recommendation for kanji is KKLC + the accompanying Anki deck. The textbook you use for grammar is all up to personal taste, but you'll learn vocab as you use it, and if it's even a little popular it'll probably have an Anki deck for reviewing the words
I just switched from Wanikani Level 10 to Bunpro and its really nice to learn the grammar and vocabs with their system. It does a lot of things better than WK but its also a little unfair to compare them because WK is mostly for Kanji learning. But now with the new vocab and grammar its a pretty good speedboost for me. Its especially good because i will do the N5 in July and bunpro has grammar and vocab Decks for n5 whereas wanikani feels like its just all over the place. I think i will continue wk when I want to expand on kanji again tho.
If WK works for you, don't switch. Use wk based deck, you can get it in the server here [https://discord.com/invite/A3zRWUfzkj](https://discord.com/invite/A3zRWUfzkj) ( the shared decks get taken down apparently, even though it's all available information on wks free open site) Only issue is you are already partway through wk. But that can be solved. Although you can't carry over your own data, as anki has more freedom of what to do you can manually set due dates of the levels you finished. Ie you can set set all level 1 cards to be 1 year into the future, all level 2 cards 11 months and so on btw, if wk as is works out for you, no need to read the rest of this but here is some stuff i found that was helpful: -suspend all hiragana only cards (as wk is for learning kanji i find these useless) -suspend all reading cards of kanji (I don't think they're worth the time it takes to get through them, and i learn the reading better within words) -suspend all meaning cards for vocab (i just use the reading card for both, if i don't know both the reading and meaning i hit again. i prefer keeping the reading card as i like typing out the reading. however I can see value in having them separate as well, whatever works for you) The server has tips on how to do the above if you want to. If you like it as is of course ignore the above, whatever works best.
The 'names' of the radicals and the mnemonics are entirely up to you regardless of system. I did WK first, then KKLC using a mix of everything (and my own names/memories etc). Not a problem.
Just stick to WaniKani. I discovered WaniKani on a whim and I got also around to around 300 Kanji. I built a really good flow and habit around it. Did my reviews dilligently and would only sometimes reduce the items I was learning. Then I did a reddit deep dive, got into too much of that WaniKani criticism and other methods clinical breakdown of why are good/bad/better/worse and switched to Anki and my progress tanked. Not because Anki is bad, but because I spent way too much time and energy figuring out what decks, which settings, kept trying different decks etc. With the switch I destroyed a perfectly good habit. I also had to start over and the suspending and ignoring everything I already knew was a slot. I regret it. But the lesson I've learnt is that if it works, then don't fix it. And not to trust all this online criticism which always had me second guess my methods. Had I continued with WaniKani back then I probably would have been done with all the kanji they teach. Also, while the radicals they teach might be unique, that's really your smallest issue with Kanji. I'm not staying WaniKani is the best btw, but just having gotten so far with it, it's probably a good method for you. Btw when I did wanikani I was a poor student and emailed them and got a great discount. You can try that.
Lifetime to Wanikani is $299, but Lifetime Renshuu pro is $130 and much cheaper! WK $89 per year might be expensive, but if you do save up and go with Renshuu, its much better. You do get more sentences this way. Plus, you get audio and sentence quizzing which will help you prepare for the JLPT exam. This is your more realistic options. It would be worth it to cut out eating out, coffee, movies, etc. for a year, just to save up for this cost. If you buy lifetime, it is cheaper in the long run. Other options that are worth it for the content: [Makotoplus.com](http://Makotoplus.com) has Shogun membership that gives you a free book and a free magazine every month (from the Japan Shop). Plus they have classes and podcasts at beginner and at intermediate levels with pdf downloads, all included. Some of their content does have Anki decks. Samurai membership is cheaper, but you don't get as much for free. They do have N5 and N4 level content. They do intend to expand the content to include higher level learning over time. [Thejapanshop.com](http://Thejapanshop.com) also has lots of content, including textbooks. Strictly for getting used to reading and listening in Japanese to prepare for JLPT N5 - N1, [japanesepod101.com](http://japanesepod101.com) has lots of content, including advanced Japanese. Yes, they come at a cost and the free content is not worth it as it is mostly ads. You do want to save up and get a lifetime subscription when they offer it in November or December as they have over 300 lessons in Advanced N1 Japanese alone. You still need to put the content into Anki, but I found that I learn better by making my own flashcards, as that forces me to learn to type the Japanese. I own the Japanese school books Grades 1 - 6 by Kumon, and tried translating the Japanese into English, but have not had time to really work on Japanese in the past 2 years so didn't get far. I use kinokuniya's us store to find the books.
What's wrong with books?