Ok so I’m approaching 12m on WK and renewal is coming up. I’m level 12. Thing is, it’s becoming relentless and I’m running to stand still. There are 150 plus reviews a day all backloaded to stupid o’clock & by the time they are cleared I have no time to do lessons so progress is grindingly slow. All the joy has been sucked out of it & it’s a chore. Maybe I’m dim, but when I hit L10 the emails said the burn rate would increase but not for me. Because it’s a “task”‘I get sloppy and it’s more a question of getting through it as opposed to getting it right
I can’t be the only one to have hit the wall - any advice or am I best just walking away for a while.
I think you need to find the spark for Japanese again. What is your motivating factor. Engaging with the language outside SRS is absolutely vital.
If you feel it is only a chore, then something is definitely wrong. It reads a little like you are close to a burnout. Some slumps are perfectly fine, but if it feels like a chore for more than 2 weeks, I think you are entering dangerous territory.
What do you do besides Wanikani to find enjoyment in Japanese?
What’s your accuracy like usually? By the looks of it you must have a relatively high error rate to have so many reviews every day. What do you struggle with the most? Do you confuse kanji? Do you forget readings? Meanings? Or is it more about the SRS stage? Do you do better with Apprentice items and worse with Enlightened?
You should be proud of yourself for sticking with it for so long, especially when the process seems rather unpleasant for you. Having this sort of discipline and dedication is the most important skill required to learn a language in my experience, so I think you’re doing ok.
That being said, there’s clearly something that doesn’t seem to work quite right with your routine right now, and you’ll have to adjust that. I don’t know enough about what you do exactly to provide specific advice (do you do anything besides WaniKani?) but some generic things that could maybe help with kanji learning specifically:
If you tend to confuse kanji a lot, handwriting them could help. Look up the stroke pattern on Jisho for instance and, when you make a mistake, write the kanji a few times. Ideally write an entire word to familiarize yourself with the character in context: 勉強、辞書、最高⋯
If you tend to fail the same kanji/vocab a lot, that’s called a “leech” and unfortunately WaniKani doesn’t let you get rid of them. Don’t let that get to you though, we all have those.
If you make a lot of typos or feel like WaniKani is being too strict at failing you for “close enough” answers, install an undo script (or use a 3rd party app) to avoid these “useless” mistakes.
If the time reviews become available is bad, leave them until you are fresh and have free time. A lot of the next reviews should then synch to around that time of day.
Too few cards means too little progress, but if you do more cards in your current status then you will be in an even bigger mess. Might be approaching burnout or are already there. Self study quiz will help you solidify the cards so you can clear those reviews faster.
Your status is looking more and more like my future. Today I also felt like it was a grind and it was a bit of a struggle to get into the reviews.
To be fair, you might also have a life so your WK stats wont reflect that. And it is perfectly fine! You have to reconnect with why you are here at all. Somehow you have to find it in you to like this because its going to be your life for the next few years and eventually kanji will be an permanent part of your life.
Simias, gave a good summary of possible problems. Just one more possibility I thought of. Are you providing answers that are correct, but just not exactly what wanikani wants you to say. Other people have noted this, but you can add synonyms to items that you know and are providing a perfectly legitimate answer for, but just not wanikani’s answer. I look up the definition and am careful about adding synonyms, but I do it occasionally and I think it reduces my leeches and my frustration.
Oof. Running into the wall sucks. Hitting that period where you suddenly get things wrong you’d usually get right, and everything feels like pulling teeth. For me, at least, that was something that would happen periodically while doing WK. It would pass, but sticking with it through that drag is grating on the soul and confidence.
What does your overall Japanese routine look like? Are you putting your Japanese into practice?
An incredibly important step for me was to incorporate reading and watching with JP subs only quite early. I barely understood anything at all, but creating memories about the words and kanji in real-life context was so important for me.
In our native language, did we learn a word and review it every so often? No, we learn it and then run into it in daily life again and again. We use it. Rote memorising 10.000 things in a vacuum without context would be nearly impossible.
Encountering the words in many different ways will cement them. WK alone isn’t enough when kanji are similar in appearance or apparent meaning.
WK isn’t the end goal, or even representative or actual reading. Some savage leeches might not even register as an issue when the context of a sentence is telling you which easily-conflated kanji it is. So your WK troubles may not translate to the same troubles where it actually matters: using the language.
There is nothing wrong with a WK slow-down or break (just consider vacation mode to avoid review pile-up), but I suggest you try to keep incorporating as much kanji usage as you can to avoid losing too much progress. Use it or lose it and all that.
You do not “HAVE TO DO” reviews the moment they become available. They will still be there at any time after that when you have time/feel like doing/want to do them. In fact, doing reviews at the time you want to do them will have the effect of them (beyond first couple of apprentice level timings) coming due at that time the next time they come up.
I’m also approaching one year and def feel that it’s getting a little more difficult now.
Totally agreeing with everyone saying you don’t have to do the reviews as soon as they become available. I’m doing all my WaniKani reviews every morning with a cup of tea and plenty unlock later, but I’m doing things outside of WaniKani too, so reviews can wait for the next day.
Personally I’d suggest stopping lessons for a while until you reach a review amount that’s comfortable. Then slowly picking them up again.
For me a break is the last option, but that’s because for me personally a break can easily turn into forever. Ofc everyone is different and you have to do whats best for you.
Hope it works out!
I’ve been doing WaniKani for years, regularly for 2-3 years. I’m at level 19.I bought lifetime so that my progress speed wouldn’t stress me. I use Tsurukame app faithfully because they don’t pick on my English typos and have a “my answer was correct” button. I only use “My answer was correct” when I truly meant the correct answer. I study/review my mistake as many of times as I can. I will pause when I get it wrong and review the pnemonic or whatever to help it stick. I often look through the looks like or other words section to help me straighten out my mistake if I’m mixing it with another Kanji or word. I think it’s more important to review well than to finish the reviews. No point in covering so much if I don’t know it. And still, my accuracy is <90%. When it gives me the list of misses at the end, I quiz myself in both directions and practice writing the kanji. I wish stroke order was readily accessible. When I want to say a Japanese word I learned recently, I can’t think of it, so I started KameSame for the purpose of going from English to Japanese. Sometimes it’s good to take a break and study something else, but for my case, I am noticing improvement. And when it’s too much, I do not learn more words, just keep at my review. I tell people it’s my electronic pet that needs care several times a day or it gets out of hand.
I have lifetime and honestly it was money well spent. If you at all think you will continue long term it is worth buying especially if they do the annual holiday sale again this year.
That said, I hit two walls. One the first time through at level 7. I reset to level 3, and then hit a much bigger wall that sounds exactly like what you describe at level 26. I put my account into vacation mode and walked away. When I came back, I reset to level 1. Yes, level 1. Currently working through level 7 and my accuracy is way up, and while I wouldn’t describe it as fun, it’s at least not sucking the life out of me. Accuracy is key. If you are churning apprentice → guru → master → apprentice on too many items, then it will absolutely seem like a slog.
Also, the first time through I tried to keep my Apprentice count below 100, now I try to keep it below 50. That means going very slow on the lessons. Lifetime is a bonus in that regard.
Resetting is the nuclear option and it might not work for everyone, but it worked, so far, for me.
I also started a year ago. I was on level 3 on december and bought lifetime at a reduced price. I think it is worth it, because even if you only do less levels you can keep practicing for a long time. I also passed a time doing around 150 reviews/day, but because of being busy on different times I’ve had to reduce the amount of lessons and I’m at around 70 per day. My recommendations:
Never learn news stuff if the queue is not clean.
Try to practice every day, even if 5 min.
Entering wanikani once per day should be enough.
If you feel overwhelmed it is better to not clean the queue. In that case use an addon like reorder omega with a preset to prioritize the most out of date items (this preset needs to be configured because it does not exist out of the box), until you can clean the queue, and go back to random order. This is important to reduce the amount of errors and optimize your time.
The combination of doing some amount of reviews plus not learning anything new will lead you to being able to clean the queue consistently because the amount of reviews per day will be reduced.
Now if you worry that finishing wanikani is an insurmountable task, you need to remember: YOU DON’T NEED TO REACH LEVEL 60. The levels are ordered so the most useful stuff is on lower levels. So you can do fast the lower levels and start slowing down+doing some reading. I think actually you should start reading already on level 12 (even if it is graded readers). If you are already burning, you are full steam, so you could be able to reach level 20 in one more year with less load.
I went to Japan just after starting wanikani (level 3) and then again on level 15, and the difference in the amount of stuff I could read on the street and so on was huge. Probably the next 15 levels will make a smaller difference and the next 15 even less.
If you can afford it, I would advise to get lifetime to remove the time pressure and to start reading practice based on the words you’ve learned on WK.
I had the same fatigue around your level and going slower but deciphering simple examples sentences really helped to kindle my motivation at the time. Grinding words in the void is really tedious. Grinding sentences a little less so.
But the most important is to be kind on yourself, the worst thing that could happen is to stop your learning because going too hard for your current capacities. It’s the end of the year you may need to recharge and come back.
I’m not sure how to phrase this. In some respects, it’s actually fine that there’s no joy in it, and that it’s a chore. Perhaps if you treat it as work, that might help in grinding through it. It’s nice when the things we want do are fun, but this isn’t always the case, and that won’t change the accomplishment you will feel in the end.
That said, I think the most important thing for learning Japanese is having a solid reason for doing so. It’s a lot of work, and you really need something to keep you inspired to keep working at it, during both the fun times and the boring times.
I’m really sorry you’ve hit a rut, I know how horrible that can feel from experience! You feel like you’ve been working super hard for such a long time but your measurable skill doesn’t seem to match the effort you gave.
I really felt moved to reply to you because of how relatable this is to me. But I stopped feeling this after I realized one thing about my learning journey and myself: I really don’t care how long it takes me to learn Japanese. I love the culture, the music, the place itself, and even just the sound and look of the language is beautiful to me. Think back to why you started learning Japanese. If you feel the same way– passionate, excited by it, and would miss it if you took a long break, then keep going with your head held high. You’ve already made it so far, really. You started at zero and Japanese was probably just something you were mildly curious about. Be proud of your commitment during those 12 months, take a break if you need to (I definitely still support taking a break if it’s too overwhelming, but I also know the stress of feeling like the reviews are simply piling up even more), and try to enjoy the simple act of engaging with something you love no matter how long it takes to reach complete success❤️ (by the way, you’re already successful just by reaching level 12!)
