WaniKani Review: Excellent (But Ugly) Kanji + Vocab Trainer

I really struggled with kanji for a long time. I created flashcards, I drew them out, I used Anki, it just would’nt stick. I do sometimes use Memrise just to crunch JLPT vocab but their kanji is nowhere near as good as WaniKani.

Wanikani was a godesnd for me. There are elements that aren’t great but I am learning kanji. Really learning kanji, and vocabulary too. The spaced repetition really works and some of the mnemonics are a bit odd but I tend to come up with my own in those cases and I think you can add your own notes too.

It certainly helps if you can managed to do it every day, and really more than once a day, but on your phone in a queue or whatever that’s not too bad. If I get a bit behind I pop it on vacation mode to prevent hundreds of reviews building up and chip away til I’m at a normal amount again. I’m certainly not one of the ‘in a year’ people, I’ve had it for at least two! But I am definitely progressing.

Memrise is terrible. I tried to use it for a long time. They never update the stuff that’s broken. Comparing WK to Memrise shows a superficial usage and understanding of both perhaps. Also Anki is good but doesn’t hold your feet to the fire. It’s very easy to lie to yourself and say you know something when you actually don’t. It’s not holding your feet to the fire the way WaniKani does. After wandering in the wilderness of self-study Japanese for many years, I find WK to be truly excellent.

The interface is a bit weird, but the only thing that was unintuitive to me was the review forecast and the Burned cards. To say you don’t know what to do seems impossible. You only have to press the button and start doing the lessons it gives you.

WK is life-changing for me and many others. It deserves 5 stars despite any interface shortcomings.

Thanks for the review! I have used WaniKani for a few months and I’m on level 9. The main thing I liked about the website is the level system and how there is a structured approach to learning the Kanji. One complaint I have is how overwhelming the reviews can get; if you take a break for a few days, you could be swarmed with hundreds of kanji (there is an option to pause it though)!

Hey, Lawrence. Knowing that the higher levels present hundreds of reviews over a few days period, plus the ability to pause is a great share. Thank you. I’m doing the free training right now, and already plan on paying for higher levels.

I’m in the middle of level 2 after 11 days. I’m really enjoying the tool. Unfortunately, some of their mnemonics are terrible. Seriously, terrible! Wanikani’s idea of a mnemonic is that the hint SOUNDS like the word regardless of its ability to actually help you remember the vocabulary. For example, “remember Jourm” when you want to remember the English word for “toe.” They’ll often create very elaborate and memorable stories around the word, but in the end, you need to remember Jourm or Koichi as the mnemonic. On the other hand, some of their mnemonics are pure gold like looking down when you walk to avoid stepping in “shi ta” (Japanese for down).

Wanikani says they’re willing to accept suggestions, but have shot down the dozen I have submitted so far. Every argument they make about my idea not working can be applied to mnemonics they’re already using that break those rules, so I don’t really understand their logic. For example, they use Mrs. Chou, the street lady, as the mnemonic for the English word “street,” so I suggested street food vendor that servers chow, which is easier to remember than a street lady named Mrs. Chou. They felt the word Chou was closer in sound than “chow,” so even though a mnemonic is meant to REMEMBER something easier, they prefer Chou over Chow. I even gave them suggestions for words that don’t have mnemonics, and they’d rather not have mnemonics than use an English word that doesn’t sound EXACTLY like the Japanese pronunciation. Anyway, their site, so their choice. I still really like the site...just not some of their mnemonics. Fortunately, I can capture my own mnemonics in the note section of each word for my own sake.

Overall, I think the interface is rather easy to use. As long as you remember to refresh the dashboard (main page), the pink or blue box will light up at the top of the page if Wanikani’s algorithm feels you are ready to proceed with learning a new word or reviewing an older word, respectively. It even provides you a schedule for when new reviews will be triggered in the next day or so (up to a week away). If you want fewer words to review, then you just need to be less aggressive in learning new words. The site also provides you a method to quickly click through all of the radicals, kanji, and vocabulary you’ve already learned as a quick refresher.

Two downsides for me, While reviewing words I’ve already learned, there is no way to filter out words that I haven’t learned yet, so you have to keep clicking through each group of thirty-ish vocabulary words until you find one you’ve already learned. Also, while paging through the vocabulary, it only presents them in alphabetical order by English word. Thus, if you wanted to learn First Day, Second Day, Third Day, etc. in numerical order, you’ll need to find them individually and click on them, go back a page, and find the next one. Otherwise, just accept the fact that you’re going to see them in the following order 8, 5, 1, 4, 9, 2, 7, 6, 10, 3 (eighth, fifth, first, fourth, ninth, second, seventh, sixth, tenth, and third).

As for Anki, I downloaded the app to my PC and found someone else’s deck to test the tool. Unfortunately, Anki is not user-friendly for first time users. I have no idea how to go to the next flash card, how to flip over the current flash card, or perform any other activity with that Anki tool. Since it wasn’t intuitive, I barely gave it 1-2 minutes before determining that it will need to wait for future use. I do know it comes highly recommended, so I’m not giving up on it. HOWEVER, I’d love to find out if anybody has created a deck that ties vocabulary from Wanikani into a flash card deck that can be used on Anki. I may need to do a web search for that one day. That would probably get me to use it sooner.

Thanks for the review.

Hmm, I have to be honest that I cannot imagine comparing wanikani to memrise or anki. I have used all three and the latter two are not good for kanji. The mnemonics and format of wanikani are amazing and I can’t begin to imagine the level of work that went into making that program.