As someone learning Japanese I'm really appreciating tools built for JP specifically: Renshuu and Wanikani. Both use SRS (same as duolingo) but spend a considerable amount of time actually teaching the grammar and nuances, they both avoid starting from everyday phrases like "I would like sushi" to instead build a foundation first, and many other little things that make it a much nicer experience than Duolingo who's trying to use a very generic approach that maximises small term satisfaction in exchange for painful long term learning.
I was under the (possibly incorrect) impression that Renshuu was very beginner unfriendly and WaniKani skips the most basic stuff (hiragana et al) and is “just” to learn kanji which ofc is important. Was I wrong?
On WaniKani: that’s correct. In their FAQ (I think?) they link out to an article on Tofugu (aiui run by the same people) which gives you a couple good anki decks to learn hiragana and katakana. I started wanikani without knowing either, and found it manageable at the start by referring back to a hiragana chart. At some point I went through the decks, and after about two weeks I could read hiragana well enough to leave them behind.
Certainly not a complete resource for learning the language, but very effective for learning (to read) the kanji.
It focuses on teaching grammar and vocabulary through listening comprehension. The creator has put an immense amount of effort into it, to a point where I cannot believe its free. I highly recommend it.
I am a year into learning Japanese my self, and kind of wanted to learn vocab and kanji at the same time (and also see example sentences for the vocab which I can put into my anki deck). My method is when I start a new kanji I pick a few words that contain that kanji, bookmark them (and maybe add to my anki deck), and then when it is time for a reading review if I can remember how to pronounce those word I rate it as good.
Thanks for sharing, I'll check it out. I am currently using Wanikani +Tsurukame to learn Kanji, from your description your approach sounds similar with more customization?
I just had a look at it, love that it also teaches the stroke order, this is something I have no tool for at the moment.
If you are happy with WaniKani, you should probably just keep using WaniKani. It is a fine app (though a bit pricey). But I talked about the difference a bit in another thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43839879
The gist of it is that I like studying vocab and components (radicals) at the same time as the kanji. I kind of swap out the on/kun-yomi reading practice with bookmarked vocab, if I can remember the pronunciation of a couple of words with the kanji, I mark it as good. I also think writing the kanji helps remembering it (although I‘m not strict about it; personally if I screw up the stroke order, or add an extra tail, etc. I still rate it as good). I am also a fan of self rating rather than input evaluation.
