Oooohhhh leveling up sure is exciting! Honestly i think all the work your putting in to learn a more nuanced version of the word is definately helping keeping them separate which must be a good thing.
Tbh i think you might have inspired me to do a little better with how i memorise things on wanikani.
Often im very ‘surface level’ as i just look at what im given and go with it but i think when i get to levels that’ll have more words i don’t know (with bigger overlap meaning wise) I think I’ll begin doing some (at the very least) quick look ups for a more subtle readings.
This is the first level I’ve felt there were lots of similar terms so luckily you have a few levels before it becomes noticeable imo! (And it makes sense they teach you them at the same time since the terms often share the same kanji!)
I think the key is to do it when you have the time to, and when you don’t have the time, even doing the ‘surface level’ wanikani is amazing ! Learning all the vocab on wanikani is gonna take me years so I’m learning more and more it isn’t sustainable to have rigid rules for yourself - your learning will adapt with your life situation ! It just so happens I have the free time to study the nuances rn, u know?
levelled up to level 15 this morning didn’t realize til reading the email that i’m half way through the 苦 levels !! cool !!
in honour of this study-log, i’m continuing to experiment and play around with different approaches/speeds to learning the kanji and vocab. for this level, i’ve decided to test learning all the new level’s radicals and kanji first. This level’s new kanji was the most exciting for me so far simply bc there were lots of words i’ve already encounted which was fun e.g. 猫, 秋, 英 ! As usual, here are some thoughts/my own mnemonics!
for 秋, i don’t really associate the ‘aki’ sound with pain like the mnemoic teaches so instead i’m going with: every autumn I watch Akira (あき)
following the seasonal anime mnemonic, for 春 i’ve gone for: every spring I watch Haruhi (はる) Suzumia
i worried if i learnt the reading for 岩 with Iwajima (いわ) like WK teaches, i’d end up thinking they share kanji which they don’t so instead i’ve used past mnemonics: on a boulder is perched an eagle (い) that cries (わ)
the mnemonic for 帰 felt v odd to me bc 1) why not just say it’s かえ like the similar verb 返る or 返す (that’s how i’ll be remembering it) and 2) for those latter words they use the mnemonic of ‘car egg’ but this new word uses ‘car elephant’ which seems unnecessary - i might make a separate post for this :o (edit: i made a feedback post!)
and lastly, my most convoluted mnemonic yet lool: for the tricky 式 meaning both ritual and equation, i’ve gone back to past mnemonics: in order to contstruct the ceremony, we need to perform the ritual of using the sheep key (しき) given the equation ‘one sheep key = one constructed ceremony’; luckily the idea of a woolen key is super cute to me hehe!
so i didn’t do my lessons for l-14’s vocab for a while but finally brought myself to finish them all tonight since it looks like i’m close to finishing a huge chunk of l-15’s kanji tomorrow :o enjoying the double 0s for tonight!
gosh it’s crazy how once u get into a rhythm of doing a certain amount of reviews a day (e.g. 3 times), if u decrease even a lil bit (yesterday only doing my reviews once), it really piles up fast !
just completed about 200 reviews - feeling wiped but glad to have made it easier for future me!
got to level 16 just now! but i’m going to the seaside today so i wont be able to do the 70ish lessons that just came in til tonight!
i really like when they include messages from level-60 users in the level-up emails and i liked this email’s user message alot (encouraging us to use our kanji with reading, not just let it sit in our brains til we forget it! bought volume 9 of ひだまりスケッチ which i’m super pumped to start!)
going back to the intention of this thread as i like to do hehe, i think after the various experiments my fav method for me at this specific point in time/my life after levelling up is to learn all the previous level’s vocab in one sitting first and then learn the next level’s radicals and kanji in the days after (sooner if the previous level’s content was easy/a smaller amount or later if the opposite is true!) so that’s what i’m going to do for level 16!
i’ve been feeling the whisper of burnout lately but that’s definitely coming more from the huge influx of bunpro grammar reviews i’ve had the last few weeks (usually 70-90 a day) - i’m not really sure how to make those go down without just doing them sigh
going to try and slow down a little and recentre myself x
read about 10 bubbles of text, roughly four panels, writing out each sentence and translating what i could and looking up any (lots of) new words and phrases; took me over an hour hehe
trickiest parts:
working out components for the word 冷蔵庫 (fridge!)
this sentence (the handwritten font made it a lil trickier to identify radicals for the 4th kanji there to input into jisho). i knew it meant ‘moving day’ from context so in the end used google translate working from english to japanese working backwards, finally being led to the verb 越す (to cross over) in the phrase 引っ越しの日 (moving day)
i know the first part is just the character’s name (first kanji meaning jasmine) but can’t for the life of me find out what the second kanji is even tho it looks so simple!!!
so it turns out the answer, besides holding off on all lessons, was to just do less reviews (or to only do as much as i felt like that day, sometimes all of them, sometimes just 10 or so) and for the first time in forever i checked bunpro today and only had 17 reviews to do?? - not only that, i only got one wrong (the cursed negative い-adjective with すぎる in past conjugation haha) which was nice.
it only got so intense for a bit bc i was so keen on getting that n5 grammar bar fully filled (which i’m still super happy about hehe :D)
don’t really understand the mechanics of bunpro as well as WK; i still have a heck tonne of ghosts (how do u get rid of those?), but its nice seeing the SRS level improving for lots of grammar points!
i know this isn’t much compared to when u get to the higher levels (as NihonScope’s funny post talks about) but for me waking up to see this amount left me shook loool
completed this (and then an extra 7 reviews that appeared when i finished lool) in just over an hour w some distractions with a 88%: not too bad and feel lighter having that done!
Thing is since I wrote that… I really did hit the nail on the head.
This happened shortly after… and then a week later I beat that amount again, and that was without having anything merge together.
It really is WaniKani forever buddy! Keep those turtle piles low and make sure you use the completion screen with your reviews afterwards as a way to quickly go over your incorrect stuff so you can smash them out quickly next time you see them…
The scroll over feature makes it a nice way to make sure you got them all down before the next round of reviews.
That’s something I wish I started doing awhile ago when I thought 220 reviews was a lot. And I’m not downing that, it’s not something to scoff at… when I was in school in Japan I never did that many a day while in class for 6-7 hours. So it certainly says something to your dedication to the monstrosity and to learning kanji!
well done for completing that !!! so odd that you had that amount twice even without the merge ? the WK gods can be cruel and mysterious
ty so much for all the good advice like looking over your wrong inputs at the completion screen! i’m defo trying to be more mindful of the leeches in my life dedicating extra time to learning them (idk why the numbered days 六日, 四日, 八日 etc. wont stick!) but it seems i’m retaining things much better since: 1. implementing writing out all the new radicals/kanji/vocab during lessons and 2. using my own (and the communities’) mnemonics not just WK’s
for sure! even when the review count is high, i still feel really grateful for the opportunity WK gives to learn so relatively quickly! hopefully i’ll keep that mindset on days with nearly 700 reviews…
got the double 0:0 this morning I’m liking the pace at which I’m working atm ! Feeling very glad for downloading the community mnemonics API - sometimes you read some of them and it’s so good you think why isn’t this the official wk one!
but finally brought myself to finish them all tonight since it looks like i’m close to finishing a huge chunk of l-15’s kanji tomorrow :o enjoying the double 0s for tonight!
do less reviews 
!!! so odd that you had that amount twice even without the merge ? the WK gods can be cruel and mysterious