Free guide · 5 minute read
I went looking for WaniKani for Korean. Here's what actually exists
Updated 2026-08-09
When I finished learning Japanese kanji with WaniKani and switched to Korean, I assumed I'd find the same kind of tool: fixed levels, spaced repetition, someone else deciding the order, and no deck building. I searched everywhere. I asked forums. I tried random apps. And I kept coming up empty.
Eventually I realised the problem wasn't me. It's that WaniKani's structure doesn't map neatly onto Korean. But the method does, and that's the part worth understanding.
Here's the short version of what I learned.
Why there's no WaniKani for Korean
WaniKani is built around kanji, and Korean simply doesn't have an equivalent ladder. Hangeul is an alphabet you can learn in an afternoon. There's no years-long climb from radicals to kanji to vocabulary. You clear the writing system almost immediately.
That means the hard part of Korean isn't the script. It's the vocabulary. All of it.
So the question isn't “where's the Korean WaniKani?” It's “which parts of WaniKani actually matter for Korean?”
What does transfer (and honestly matters more)
Once you strip away the kanji, WaniKani is really four ideas:
- Someone else chooses the order
- Levels give you a sense of progress
- Reviews come back right before you forget them
- You type the answer instead of recognising it
Those last three points transfer perfectly to Korean. In fact, typing matters more, because Korean spelling has sound changes that trick beginners. You can read 좋아요 confidently and still write 조아요 unless you've actually typed it enough times. The pronunciation rules guide covers why that gap exists.
And since Korean doesn't need a radical ladder, frequency ordering becomes the equivalent: learn the words Koreans use most, first. The 100 most common Korean words is where that starts.
So what are the real options?
After trying everything, here's the honest landscape:
Anki
Free, powerful, and completely DIY. Amazing if you love building your own material. Terrible if choosing what to study is the thing that stops you studying.
Talk To Me In Korean
Grammar first. Great lessons, huge archive. Perfect if your problem is sentence structure rather than vocabulary.
Drops / LingoDeer
Pretty, polished, easy to use. Heavy on recognition. Light on retention. Fun, but not enough on their own.
HanGeul (what I ended up building)
The closest thing to the WaniKani shape: 60 levels ordered by frequency, spaced repetition on every word, and answers you type in Korean. When you miss, it shows you the exact letter. The first three levels and the entire alphabet course are free.
Try a Korean review right now
This is the actual review card from inside the course, not a screenshot. No account needed. Type it using the on-screen keyboard or your own, and get one wrong on purpose to see how the feedback pinpoints the exact letter.
water
물 is ㅁ then ㅜ then ㄹ. Tap those on the keyboard above, or type A, N, F: the letters sit exactly where a Korean keyboard puts them.
This is the review card from inside the app, so pressing Enter checks your answer just as it will once you sign up. Get one wrong on purpose to see the feedback pinpoint the letter.
How to choose
The simplest test is this:
- If you quit apps because they never told you what to do next, choose a fixed curriculum.
- If you quit apps because they wouldn't let you study the words you needed, choose Anki.
Either way, the thing that makes vocabulary stick is the same: you see each word again right before you forget it, and you have to produce it, not recognise it.
Any tool that does both will work. Some just make it easier.
The closest thing to WaniKani for Korean
Sixty levels, over 5,000 words ordered by how often Koreans use them, and reviews that arrive right before you would forget. You type the Korean, and when you miss, it shows you which letter. The first three levels are free.
Frequently asked questions
- Is there a Korean version of WaniKani?
- No. WaniKani teaches Japanese kanji and vocabulary, and its makers have never released a Korean edition. What people usually mean by the question is whether anything applies the same method to Korean: levelled spaced repetition, a fixed curriculum, and no decks to build yourself. Several tools cover part of that.
- Does WaniKani teach Korean hanja?
- No, and it would not help much if it did. Modern Korean is written almost entirely in Hangeul, so hanja appears mainly in the occasional headline, legal document, or name card. You can read Korean newspapers, menus, and novels without knowing a single character.
- What is the closest thing to WaniKani for Korean?
- It depends which part of WaniKani you value. For a fixed levelled curriculum with spaced repetition and nothing to configure, HanGeul is the closest fit. For total control over your own material, Anki is more flexible and free. For grammar rather than vocabulary, Talk To Me In Korean is the better known option.
- Can I just use Anki for Korean vocabulary?
- Yes, and plenty of people do. Anki is free, powerful, and endlessly configurable. The cost is that you either build your own deck or trust a shared one, and you tune the settings yourself. If choosing what to study is the part that stops you studying, a fixed curriculum tends to survive contact with a busy week better.
- Does Korean need an SRS at all?
- Vocabulary is exactly the kind of material spaced repetition suits: thousands of small items, each worth little on its own, all of which decay without review. Grammar and speaking need conversation and reading. Most learners end up pairing an SRS for words with something else for everything around them.
- How long does it take to learn Korean vocabulary this way?
- A level a week through a 60 level course of roughly 5,300 words is a little over a year, which is a realistic pace at about twenty minutes a day. Reading Hangeul itself takes an afternoon, so the alphabet is not the slow part. The slow part is the words, which is precisely what spaced repetition is for.