Can you use WaniKani with Jalup?
WaniKani is a popular kanji learning tool from the producers of Tofugu. I only have positive things to say about their team and products. Since they have so many users (way more than Jalup!), one of the most commonly asked questions I get of course involves them.
Does WaniKani and Jalup mesh well together as learning companion tools?
Some general thoughts
Using more than one language learning tool comes with benefits: you get the best of multiple worlds. It also comes with risks: you might suffer from resource overload.
I do almost always encourage people to try different things, and there is nowhere on the site I’ve ever said don’t use X (except English subtitles, which I still stand by). It’s important that I recognize there are aspects of Jalup that click with some people, and other parts that are as far from a click as possible.
But the problem isn’t as easy as combining textbooks with different explanations. There are important implications when you do both together.
Using WaniKani with Kanji Kingdom
Kanji Kingdom teaches kanji. Wanikani teaches kanji.
However, both use English keywords to represent kanji. And while there is overlap, there are differences. Different keywords for the same kanji cause confusion. The same issue exists with using RTK.
One solution is to turn the Japanese-only keywords on for Kanji Kingdom. This will prevent keyword collision. Another solution is getting the keywords to align together (choose which keyword you like better and edit the other’s keyword to match).
But if neither of these work for you, you might want to make a choice. Try both. See which you like. Kanji Kingdom isn’t a requirement to use Jalup Main (the sentence decks).
Using WaniKani with Jalup Main
Jalup Main is all about sentences, grammar, and vocabulary. No conflict with kanji learning. But another possible issue arises. WaniKani includes vocabulary words with English definitions.
This won’t seem to matter much while you are on Jalup Beginner. But after that, you drop the English, and go Japanese-only. This is where you learn how to use a Japanese dictionary, how to think in Japanese, and really get used to the formation of Japanese sentences. If you’ve already learned all these words in English, the effects of J-J are lessened.
There are people who do both J-J and J-E at the same time (Core and Jalup are another often-used combo). While some words do overlap, many do not. And even when you already know the word in English, struggling through how the definition works in Japanese still has powerful results.
What’s your experience?
I know… this post really isn’t answering the question directly. There is too much personal study style involved to make things straightforward. And since I’ve never used WaniKani, my opinion doesn’t really mean much.
Which is why it would be awesome for anyone who has used WaniKani and Jalup to leave their experience below. Did you use both? Or did you choose one over the other? What worked and what didn’t?
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
I started Wanikani and Jalup at about the same time, but dropped Wanikani after a few months, mainly because I felt it took too much time for too little progress. I eventually settled on the app Kanji Study for Android, and the All in One Kanji deck for Anki. I don’t think Wanikani is a bad product, but dropping it was probably the right call for me.
Since I learned Kanji from multiple sources, keywords deserve special mention. At first, I was worried about English keywords disagreeing between sources, but I actually don’t think it matters at all. When you’re recognizing kanji in J-E, it’s good enough to think of any approximate English word; when you’re recalling kanji in J-J, you’re not using English keywords at all. You only need an exact keyword to recall kanji in E-J, and that’s not how they’re normally used.
Knowing 服 and 衣 ⇒ clothes/garment/attire/something is useful
Knowing いふく ⇒ 衣服 is useful
Knowing clothes ⇒ 服 and garment ⇒ 衣… seems like a bit of a party trick.
To its credit, I think Wanikani was reasonably forgiving about this sort of thing. Or maybe I just added lots of keywords to every kanji?
I reached level 60 of Wanikani then transitioned to Jalup. Already knowing most useful kanji made the sentence grind much easier.
Let me give some context. I went into Japanese with the mindset of “learn all the kanji first, then everything else”. Additionally, I prioritized building a Japanese routine, and sought to do so with minimal work every day for a long time. Learning Kanji with WK fit the bill for me, then when doing SRS reviews was already a part of my life branching out became much easier
So I’m currently on WK level 23 and have just started Jalup Intermediate, and I’m finding the two work pretty well together. I use WK for kanji learning and Jalup for grammar/reading practice. I tried using Kanji Kingdom, but I guess my brain really likes the WK-style of learning, with each kanji broken down into radicals, a mnemonic device to remember it, and the reading parceled along with it. (Plus, if I’m honest, it’s nice to be able to do WK in a web browser. As I use the Jalup app, it can only be used on my phone, no other devices (easily).)
I haven’t found any meaningful conflicts between the two, in terms of differing keywords – but I guess I look at a particular kanji as representing a concept, not a specific word. To use the example someone above said, 服 can represent “clothes”, and whether the word used is “clothes”, “apparel”, “garment”, or whatever, it’s still the base idea of “clothes”, so it doesn’t matter that much to me which specific English word is used to represent it.
You do raise a good point about the use of English in WK being a bit of a barrier to pure J-J learning, and to be honest that’s something I’ve been wondering about as I start JI, but I have felt like I’ve still been learning something valuable as I puzzle through the J-J definition for a term on a JI card. And (so far) there hasn’t been too much overlap between the kanji I’ve learned through WK and the kanji presented in JI. Granted, I am only on card 20, so. :)
I‘m glad you made a post about wanikani an Jalup together ^^
Those to are my main study resources. I tries knajikingdom, but I never really got the kanji to stick. Wanikani did the trick gor me and it work‘s great. Knowing many kanjis before doing jalup beginner helped me a lot to go through the sentences and learn new vocab and grammar points. Recently I started to use bunpro to further improve my grammar knowledge.