Finally level 60!

Almost exactly 3 years since I started, doing reviews almost every single day, I have finally reached level 60!

I wanted to thank the WaniKani team for creating such a great resource to study kanji with. I honestly don’t think I would have been able to make it this far without WaniKani. The SRS system, mnemonics, and structured level system all really make Kanji learning fun and rewarding.

Unfortunately now I am at a bit of a loss as to where to go next to continue my Japanese learning. I have completed both Genki books, passed the JLPT N3, and can read Japanese fairly comfortably. However I feel like I am still lacking in speaking and listening.

If anyone has any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it!

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おめでとう!

Try the HelloTalk app to find Japanese native speakers to talk to. It’s supposed to be good.

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おめでとうございます!

Well… I’m still a beginner… but I would also suggest you the HelloTalk app. Find some friends there and try to make videocalls (for speaking practice).

Also, read books. There’s always more complex books to read. I remember that what made my English go from intermediate level to “native” very fast was reading books about my area of expertise in English (I’m Portuguese).

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Congrats! Next step sounds like speaking for you then?

Now that i’ve started feeling more comfortable reading I try reading out loud in Japanese. Hopefully itll help in the long run but level 60 is still quite far away :slight_smile:

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Does HelloTalk allow you to search for people speaking a certain language and wanting to speak another? I speak a lot with my tutor, but it feels like speaking with random people will help build confidence better since I’m comfortable with my tutor (where in Japan, I’ll be talking with people for the first time and hence will be uncomfortable), It would be nice to be able to speak to random people, not the same person/people over and over.

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I hate to keep repeating, but I can’t recommend HelloTalk enough. My mother uses it as her primary resource for practicing her Korean and she has made incredible progress!

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Congratulations. I reach level 50 today and am having similar excitement.

As for where to go next, a tutor helped me out a lot. I got a private tutor about 3 years ago just to practice conversational Japanese. We meet every Friday night for about an hour and just talk. It has improved my speaking and listening ability tremendously, as well as forced me to talk about topics I would not find in a textbook.

I also learned a fair amount about Japanese history and culture. If possible I definitely recommend a tutor, but I understand it can be expensive. I pay $30 an hour which is fine for me, but could be too much for other people.

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That’s exactly how it works.

I’ll give you my example:

I know English and Portuguese. I wanna learn Japanese. So now I will be able to search for people that know Japanese and are looking to learn either English or Portuguese. They can also search me.

(I’m VIP there so I can add multiple languages to learn/teach. Free accounts can only add one of each).

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Yes. With HelloTalk, you input your native language and the current language you’re learning when you sign up. I input English as my native language and Japanese as my learning language, and I see nothing but Japanese people learning English in the app.

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Good job! Congrats!

おめでとう。
I don’t have anything to improve speaking but you could polish your listening the same way I polished my english, with TV series and youtube videos.

If you can’t find any japanese Youtube channel to your liking, you can try NicoNico video.

Also you can disable subtitles in Crunchyroll, leaving a ton of anime material to practise listening.

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Congrats!!

Check out italki to take your speaking ability to the next level and especially consider doing shadowing – there’s a book (called “shadowing”) that is great, or you can just take audio from native speakers you want to sound like (from movies or TV for example), transcribe what they say and then talk along.

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I just reached level 60! It took 1 year, 10 months exactly!

Since starting Wanikani, I’ve found my comprehension level increase dramatically. It was so worth it.

Now to reduce my review workload and then get started on some Anki decks that cover the remaining kanji and vocabulary.

Here are my stats below:

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how do you get your stats?

You will need to enter your API key as well from your settings page.

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Love that tool with a burning passion.

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How was the workload from level 46 onward when you leveled up every 4 days? Did your apprentice number explode? Did you have to review twice as many items?

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Maybe something is up with level 56 peak of two weeks?

As for mine…

It is hard, nor should I keep 4 days’ duration constant.

I plan to go Level 60, and then bifurcate: 1. reset to level 31, focusing on sentence comprehension (also to spontaneously kill leeches) 2. finish all Joyo kanji and beyond, on Anki.

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The Apprentice level didn’t really explode. I was still able to keep the Apprentice pile level, but it did start getting bigger. I think doing my reviews often every day helped manage the pile. But yes, the review workload increased a fair bit. Every so often, I would delay the level up by a couple days which helped too.

I did hit a wall at 56, where I was getting so many reviews and had some days where I wasn’t able to do any reviews, which didn’t help. I managed to get on top of them though. Spreading lessons over those 4 days, instead of doing them all at once really helped lower the daily review workload too.

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Congrats on your achievement…for someone who has just started Wanikani it’s inspiring to see people actually reaching a level where they feel competent at reading. I was wondering, how do you find your word recall abilities now that you are at the highest levels? For example, if someone asked you what the Japanese word for an item or verb was could you recall it easily? I’m currently living in Japan and try to speak on a daily basis with my friends…i’m hoping Wanikani will provide me with a much increased vocabulary.

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