# 3 Months of Grinding Kanji, Level 10 Reached **URL:** \ **Category:** Kanji\ **Created:** [July 14, 2026, 3:56am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/3-months-of-grinding-kanji-level-10-reached/75088 "2026-07-14T03:56:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Memori](https://cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wanikanicommunity/original/3X/f/d/fd4c154120954695f788402f3bcf4e616499bc2d.png) [@Memori](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Memori)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2026, 3:56am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/3-months-of-grinding-kanji-level-10-reached/75088/1 "2026-07-14T03:56:51Z")
First post and a bit rambly, sorry in advance 笑 # LEVEL 10! ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/original/4X/3/6/2/362dbbfca6ebafa72dd2815ebf5d4b4e81629aae.png) Welp, it’s not much yet but after studying kanji daily — aside from a 4th of July camping trip with friends — for the last 3 months I’ve reached Level 10 on WaniKani. やった！ Now admittedly, I _maaaaay_ have dragged out level 3 for a couple weeks longer than I needed to maximize free trial time and attempt to be economic, but I still get that feeling that I’m going too slow every now and then. It’s a strange feeling, seeing as I am probably going harder at it than most learners, using both WaniKani, Anki, and a mobile Kanji study app that teaches how to write them, and yet it catches me all the same. ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/original/4X/5/e/9/5e94e2f5c22ec863b9dc89eeb960edd094b8c80c.png) ## My Journey To give a little more background into my journey for those curious, I started around 7 or 8 years ago during Duolingo’s boom on a bit of a whim, but only really made it through kana, basic grammar, and whatever N5 kanji Duolingo would throw at me without warning. For a long time I listened to Japanese music, watched anime, and occasionally attempted (poorly) to talk to Japanese speakers in VRChat. It was a very unproductive start that lasted up until December of last year where I finally made the commitment to lock in on this thing and really try to learn it. After that decision, I began regularly listening to beginner podcast, watching Japanese YouTube, going on VRChat to speak with natives for several hours each day, among other tools. I went to Japan from late February to Early march and my skill in the language was enough to make the trip more enjoyable, but also left me with even more motivation to improve, which drove me to finally take the jump into actually trying to learn grammar and kanji formally in early April. That finally brings me here, knowing about 500 kanji that I can read and write with a respectable degree of comfort and confidence, more ability to speak with and comprehend others, and somehow even more motivation than before. I expected a sudden burnout to make me crash and burn but nothing of the sort has happened miraculously. I am about 60% through the N3 Jouyou kanji and excited to begin learning N2 hopefully soon. ## Looking Forward From here perhaps it’s time I really take the dive albeit scary into reading. If I’ve learned anything from this it was that kanji isn’t so scary, and I wish I started it much sooner in my journey. Reading will probably be the same. Thanks for reading my messy ramble, I’ll see you all at Level 20 soon 🫡 _For anybody that likes numbers and statistics as much as I do, here’s my current wkstats graph as well:_ ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/original/4X/d/5/7/d573859b49116d3ed56b54a6af10b0549b6f9f29.png) [My Level 20 Progress Report](https://community.wanikani.com/t/6-months-of-grinding-kanji-level-20-reached/76032) ---
**Author:** ![burgerkingler](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/burgerkingler/32/660735_2.png) [@burgerkingler](https://community.wanikani.com/u/burgerkingler)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2026, 4:29am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/3-months-of-grinding-kanji-level-10-reached/75088/2 "2026-07-14T04:29:04Z")
Nice work!! Keep it up!👍 😁 ---
**Author:** ![mikazuki023](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/mikazuki023/32/817824_2.png) [@mikazuki023](https://community.wanikani.com/u/mikazuki023)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2026, 5:24pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/3-months-of-grinding-kanji-level-10-reached/75088/3 "2026-07-14T17:24:13Z")
nice! coincidentally we are on a pretty similar pace… my streak is 117 today and i’m due to hit level 11 tomorrow. my background and journey are very different from yours but we’re still in this together 🤝 ---
**Author:** ![Matabooa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/wanikanicommunity/user_avatar/community.wanikani.com/matabooa/32/570493_2.png) [@Matabooa](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Matabooa)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2026, 6:03pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/3-months-of-grinding-kanji-level-10-reached/75088/4 "2026-07-14T18:03:20Z")
I’ve been using Wk for nearly the same amount of time and our stories are really similar. I had been not seriously trying to learn until about last December when I realized our 10-year anniversary trip was coming up and I needed to really buckle down and make strides. Went to Japan for 2 weeks had an amazing time and my years of effort in learning Japanese did not go to waste. I was able to navigate, manage store transactions, translate for my husband (who barely knows any Japanese other than greetings) and even have full conversations with people. However where our stories differ is after my return to the states, even though I am actively reading the Japanese subtitles on YouTube videos, and reading manga, and even working on reading my first full novel in Japanese ( The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe but in Japaneseライオンと魔女). I realized that I wanted to start my wanikani journey over. So even though I had comfortably achieved level 12, I have reset back to level one and I’m happy with it. I would like to have some easy wins and familiar ground to cover for a while, while I’m doing all this other content. Congrats on your journey! Maybe we could chat about your trip some time? 私たちは 仙台へ行きました. 仙台だけ 旅行しました. 銀の三角を旅行しません. どちらへ行きましたか? ---
**Author:** ![Memori](https://cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wanikanicommunity/original/3X/f/d/fd4c154120954695f788402f3bcf4e616499bc2d.png) [@Memori](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Memori)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2026, 6:05pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/3-months-of-grinding-kanji-level-10-reached/75088/5 "2026-07-16T18:05:30Z")
Thanks! I plan to keep going until I can atleast read and write all the Jouyou Kanji, but ideally I also want to be able read another 1000 kanji or so to really make myself comfortable ---
**Author:** ![Memori](https://cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wanikanicommunity/original/3X/f/d/fd4c154120954695f788402f3bcf4e616499bc2d.png) [@Memori](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Memori)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2026, 6:06pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/3-months-of-grinding-kanji-level-10-reached/75088/6 "2026-07-16T18:06:32Z")
Quite similar pace indeed lol. After visiting Japan I knew I had to finally stop avoiding kanji so the next trip doesn’t need an English menu constantly lol ---
**Author:** ![Memori](https://cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wanikanicommunity/original/3X/f/d/fd4c154120954695f788402f3bcf4e616499bc2d.png) [@Memori](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Memori)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2026, 6:09pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/3-months-of-grinding-kanji-level-10-reached/75088/7 "2026-07-16T18:09:01Z")
Since I was also using other sources to learn kanji my early levels of WaniKani were also full of those easy wins, but I’m starting to get to WK territory that diverges more, teaching kanji and vocab the others apps haven’t covered as often. For my trip I did the silver triangle of Tokyo Osaka Kyoto mostly because it was my very first time traveling abroad and I wasn’t sure how far my Japanese at the time could really carry me.