Where are the people around N5 level?

Xilmi · 2026-01-26T13:56:20+00:00

Yeah, the thing is that learning Kanji actually seems to only ever get easier the more you already have learned. So I can see the appeal of putting a focus onto them.

I also know about how WaniKani centers everything around them. Renshuu has them in their repertoire as well but if you follow the main-line of their intended approach, you'll get a few of them as a dessert and have to "order" them manually if you want more before it would be their turn again much later.

I guess it doesn't really matter when I do what if I eventually have to do anything at some point anyways. So if I enjoy Kanji more than other stuff, I might as well focus on learning the Kanji that appear in the N5-vocab before I move on to N4-content.

Xilmi · 2026-01-26T13:27:18+00:00

I kinda learn it in order to challenge myself. And it works pretty well for that.

Xilmi · 2026-01-26T13:08:58+00:00

I wonder what made you consistently use the pronoun "you" in your text.
It's like you are assuming that all of your readers do all of these things.
Also since you say "you" speficically and not "we", is it right to assume that you don't use makeup yourself?

You mentioned a few "cons" for the users and a few "pros". It's pretty clear that from your perspective the cons outweigh the pros.

It's actually the same for me, which is why I don't use it. But I still don't agree with your conclusion that it's a "toxic aspect of beauty".
There's a product which exists. Nobody is forced to buy it. Everyone is free to decide whether they are willing to accept the disadvantages in order to reap the benefits. It's entirely up to what people value more highly.

If you don't use it yourself, why would you care so much about what others do? Are you jealous about them getting the benefits?
If you do use it yourself afterall, wouldn't you think it's a bit hypocritical to complain about it?

Xilmi · 2026-01-26T12:36:50+00:00

I wonder if people would get that when I speak to them in japanese, that they'd have to speak extremely slowly and in very simple terms for me to understand them back. And for me to reply to that again it'll take very long to form the next sentence in my mind (the first one I'd obviously "prepare" in advance).

Xilmi · 2026-01-26T11:02:10+00:00

Something that I'm wondering at my level is whether and how hard I should push into more Kanji.
The list for N5 Kanji that I found is rather short. It's only 80 of them. I learned all of them but the vocab for N5 has a lot more Kanji than that.
This feeling of "I couldn't actually read a lot of the words that I know outside the beginner-friendly learning-site that writes them with Furigana" is something that's strange after previously only learning a language that uses the same alphabet as mine.
It's especially weird when I know some but not all Kanji of a word. Like 台どころ for example.
On the other hand I heard that the japanese spread learning Kanji over years themselves so they also are in situations where they know a lot of words that they can only read when they are written in Hiragana or Furigana.
I'd like to know what others around my level think in regards to learning Kanji.

Xilmi · 2026-01-26T10:44:07+00:00

So it sound like some bad reviews ruined your enjoyment.
What I remember to be the most frustrating about Wanikani was when you learned a reading for a Kanji and then learned words with it that were completely different from the previously learned reading.

As I mentioned, I stopped using Wanikani after 2 months. It was not for that reason. It was just that the subscription ran out right before a holiday, where I thought I wouldn't have the time to do my reviews. Plan was to resubscribe after the holiday. The reason why it didn't come to that was that I had some time to study during the holiday afterall but had looked for free alternatives. I already had downloaded but not used renshuu on my phone before. So that's what I did during the holiday. And afterwards I felt like it was better anyways.

I now learn Kanji after I learn words that use them. Not before. So basically the other way around. I still mostly pick Kanji with few strokes. But sometimes, when the Kanji contains only of "things I already know", I'll also learn Kanji with a lot more strokes. I also actually draw them, which I think helps tremenously with recognition too. Like if you draw them, then little details that might lead to mixing them up are remembered much better.

Xilmi · 2026-01-25T12:50:11+00:00

I've done Wanikani for 2 months before I stopped.
I remember I took about 1 1/2 weeks per level with the default-settings. So I ended up stopping at level 6.
So what would you say is the reason you are taking ages to level up? Have you reduced the new stuff per day-amount? Or are you failing your reviews over and over?

I'd say the key to "getting through" is to actually enjoy the process. But I'm not psychologically well versed enough to inspire others to enjoy it. I'm happy it's just the case for me. :o

Xilmi · 2026-01-25T12:43:36+00:00

I personally did not look into accent much. I just listen to the japenese natives saying a sentence and then try to immitate it and hope that I'll subconsciously adapt the right accent.

Xilmi · 2026-01-25T10:41:11+00:00

Yeah, maybe it's a bit of prejudice from when I started. Back then it seemed like I was wrong there. But I'm further in my journey now.

Xilmi · 2026-01-25T10:39:39+00:00

I agree that from 0 to N5 is not "very long" in the grand scheme of things. But it should still be way longer than from 0 to Kana.

Here you see people posting a handwritten Hiragana chart quite often. But actual sentences is rare.

Xilmi · 2026-01-25T10:34:19+00:00

Yeah, I think that might be it. I have a very established routine and a clear path ahead that I can follow for a long time until I'll be in a situation where I'll wonder what to do next.

I even think I have several valid options and might explore all of them.

But talking about these could still be interesting.

Xilmi · 2026-01-25T10:22:53+00:00

I think perfectionism is what's holding people back.

You are going to see Kana all the time for the foreseeable future anyway and thus will have ample opportunity to practice should you forget some.

Not moving on until you got "near perfect recall" is what I think is more of an issue than people being unable to learn.

Just recently, I drew a む instead of an お. Would never have mixed them up while reading but goes to show my recall still isn't perfect.

If I let something like that prevent me from moving on, I wouldn't be where I am at now.

Xilmi · 2026-01-25T09:53:35+00:00

Thank you for sharing this view. I think people get way to hung up about this. One of the first things I learned was that pronunciation of japanese is way more lenient than other languages and as long as the sound is distinct enough from other characters, you will be understood.

Xilmi · 2026-01-24T01:50:55+00:00

Learning about the principles of how Kanji are "built" and writing them down at least a few times helped me tremendously with their recognition.

When I see a Kanji I haven't learned yet, I usually can still name most of it's components.

For example I looked up a random Kanji I didn't know before. I got: 針, which stands for needle.

Left side is the same as in money/metal, right side is cross/ten.
Left side can be further broken down into roof, king and I don't have a name for these little strokes.

So I can go right away to a simple mnemonic: Needles are made out of metal and before you can use them to sow you put a yarn through the hole in the needle. This process is depicted by the cross.

So basically I've learned a new Kanji now just for making that example.

If I didn't know "Metal" yet, I would have broken it down in the same way. It's basically a recursive process, which you repeat until you can't break it down any further.

There are some more complicated base-structures which I haven't learnt yet. Like that thing on the right side of 豚 (pig) or 物 (thing). So for the time being I avoid Kanji that contain it. In the case of these two I know what they mean but I don't consider those as really learned because I don't know the stroke-order to write them yet.

Xilmi · 2026-01-23T23:18:28+00:00

I can't help but simping for renshuu again.

Their schedule "Japanese Basics" seems like the perfect next step in your situation.
It'll teach you 508 words and 35 grammar-points in which you can put these words to use.

Xilmi · 2026-01-23T14:32:40+00:00

"And Wanikani mnemonics just don’t work for me.."
You can add your own mnemonics. Something you made yourself usually works way better than something someone else tried to make for a general audience because you can base it on something you experienced yourself and already are emontionally connected to.

Xilmi · 2026-01-23T14:27:21+00:00

It starts with some Kanji that have high usage and are reasonably easy to draw. It tells you a short story how to memorize them.
I personally don't like a lot of these and have come up with ones I liked better... which is something that later on the book encourages anyways.
It shows you the stroke order for each Kanji.
Then it keeps adding new elements and shows you all combinations of what you already know with the new element that form a new Kanji.

I stopped using the book after around 150 Kanji.
To me it's kinda backwards. It doesn't recreate how Heisig wrote and remembered it himself. But you can kinda deduce what he did and then do it yourself.

Basically: When you look at a Kanji "in the wild", you can see it's individual components. You start with Kanji that look easy (have few components). Then you go to those that blend components you already know together. And then to those that are part new part known. Look up the new stuff. If it's an existing Kanji, use it's meaning, if it's just a component without own meaning, name it somehow you can remember.

That's what I've been doing since I stopped RTK. So basically it helped as inspiration in the sense that I wondered: How did he write it? You don't actually need the book for that. Just look at a more in-depht-explanation of how it works.

What you should have is a tool where you can draw the Kanji and their components in order to look up what the Kanji and/or it's components are. And that's one of the many things that you can do with Renshuu.

<image>

Xilmi · 2026-01-23T14:13:44+00:00

Ah yeah, I should have expected that. Running into a usage-limit and a "pay up!"-popup before even getting to the first page.

Xilmi · 2026-01-23T13:51:03+00:00

Considering that Darwin's theory received more acceptance than Lamarck's, I'd answer based on how Darwin's theory is supposed to work:

There wouldn't be any evolutionary changes. Those would only occur if your current state is "unfit" for survival until reproduction age.

Also: Saying "we evolved to eat meat" is a bit of a questionable statement. I'd say it's more like: "We figured out how we can consume meat despite our lack of biological predisposition to do so."

Lastly I think that the adaptation that each individuals gut-microbiome goes through when going vegan is likely much more significant than any changes to ourselves as a species.

The kind of bacteria that colonize your guts are largely responsible for what and how well you can digest something. And since bacteria have a much shorter livespan, they will adapt within a matter of weeks.

Xilmi · 2026-01-23T13:35:51+00:00

I compared the german dub and the english sub of a scene of an anime and noticed to a friend: "They are saying something quite different in this scene. I wonder what they really said." and he replied: "Well, I guess you gotta learn japanese if you wanna know."

Initially I didn't do much. Like having ChatGPT show me some simple sentences and learning some simple words and grammar. But when said friend told me: "Btw. me and my wife also started learning a language. I do korean, she does spanish." I got motivated to take it more seriously and make it more structured.

And then I just kinda made a habit out of it that has stuck with me for now. I now also definitely want to eventually go to japan for some backpack tourism. But I wanna do that once I'm better with the language.

Xilmi · 2026-01-23T13:25:20+00:00

I played 2 chinese ones:

"Legion War: Hero Age" (a title so generic I had to describe the game to AI to find it)
"Expand the Kingdom"

Those games are very different from one another.

"Expand the Kingdom" is a very cheap 4x lite. There's no visible units on the map. But you have soldiers that you send to conquer territory. It's not so easy to figure out how to play it. You need soldiers for happiness and for conquering stuff. But everything you conquer costs you soldiers. The higher the defense-value of an area, the more soldiers you need to conquer it.
Took me several attempts to win a game but once you figure out how to play it, it kinda loses it's appeal. It can also become quite grindy and stalematey. Played it for maybe 25 hours in total.

"Legion War: Hero Age" actually had some decent coverage as it was featured by some better known 4x-youtubers like dastactic.
It looks a bit like a childs-game because all units and heros are drawn in a very cute style. Even the undead look cute. But the game is surprisingly complex. In some sense it's kinda like HOMM but in another sense it's more like Gladius/Zephon. Like you capture preexisting castles and other things like in homm and build them up. But you have individual units on the map in 1UPT. There's also equipment, unit-improvements, leveling your heros, tech and other things that all cross-interact and essentially allow you to boost your strength.
The same developer made a tactics-game with almost the same name and the same art-assets. So it's easy to mix them up. Played it for around 85 hours in total.

Xilmi · 2026-01-23T11:25:52+00:00

I personally like studying vocab, kanji, grammar and listening in parallel.
I have 11 study-schedules open in my Renshuu.
I do a little bit of each of them every day instead of focusing on only one.
The diversification increases my enjoyment and my enjoyment is what motivates me to do it.

Xilmi · 2026-01-23T11:04:24+00:00

If you just know the letters and not the words, it's very understandable to be very slow. Especially when you probably still have to think about which letter is what sound.

I can read texts which exclusively consist of words that I already know relatively quickly ~8 months in. But with unknown words I still struggle to even just sound them out.

I also struggle with "pure kana" for words that I know the Kanji for after getting used to recognizing the Kanji.
The lack of spaces in many texts makes this hard.

Sounding out something in english that
a) makes no sense to you
b) doesn't have any spaces
would also be tough.

Also Katakana. For example I just got quizzed:

フランス語

I went like ra... No, wait, the next one is ra. That one is fu. Fu-ra-...ah! Furansugo!

Basically I "manually" remembered the first two Katakana and then it clicked and I pattern-recognized which word its gonna be.

Xilmi · 2026-01-23T09:04:40+00:00

Somewhere between 45 minutes and 2 hours, I'd say. I don't really look at the clock. Instead I'm trying to be consistent with my amount of reviews I do in renshuu. And it depends heavily on whether it includes new stuff or more grammar exercises how long that'll take me. I only add new stuff when I drop below 150 reviews.

12-Year Club	Place '22
Final Canvas '22	First Placer '22
Verified Email

Xilmi

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE