The first levels are special. There, the review spacing in halved.
Once a day wont do my friend. My average is 9 days a level, fastest being 7 days 14 hours and I do reviews thrice daily. There have been days where I have done 350+ reviews. Also use the extra study feature . Makes levelling much smoother. Also go at a pace you are comfortable with. Slow down every few levels and learn grammar and read content. Satori reader or any of the book clubs is great for this
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Omg, you’re amazing! These stats are awesome.
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Review times are :4h, 8h, 1day, 2day
In regards to timing, for me, I will use the script to do radicals and kanji first when I get home from work and then try to do the 4 hour review before i goto bed. I try to do the 8 hour review when I get home from work so that the 1 day and 2 day will also be around that same time. That roughly gives me an 8 day per level so far, though I don’t intend on keeping up this pace past 20-25. The vocab I will do as much of whenever I got free time, though i try to get them learned in the next day or so or they will pile up.
The other part of it is getting enough of your radicals and your second set of kanji correct so otherwise you can end up losing days if you get it wrong at the apprentice 4 level. You can mess up a bit on the first set of kanji though. Also, you get a little leeway as you can mess up 3 of them without losing time. I spend a little extra time reviewing the radicals and kanji just to make sure i have them down, especially after just learning them.
That being said, I got a lot of free time on my hands and don’t feel like I’m getting burned out at the moment so I’m comfortable with the pace I’m going at. Just keep up a pace where you are comfortable and don’t feel like its a chore as everybody has different circumstances and tolerance.
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Yeah, but these could not be done any faster without not sleeping. I did each review the exact minute they came up while I was awake. Maybe in theory Level 1 can be done in 3 days and 18 hours? Right now my average is 5 days. So we’ll see at level 6 if my average becomes 10 days, since you say it’s halved. I assume it’s a bit more nuanced though and accuracy affects the algorithm.
First, I’m happy my post got so much conversation going! It was never my intention to slow shame people or say going fast is bad though. I was just honestly impressed people could do it and I was wonder why I wasn’t (a little) faster. Though I am totally happy with my speed.
I think this is it. A combination of, if you miss a couple then you might have to wait days because of it, and/or having a whole slew of vocab show up but then taking a couple of days just doing 5 at a time or something.
My level 8 was around eight days and level 9 looking to be under ten. However, I agree that is way too fast a pace (for me!!) As I said, I am super impressed with people who can do it til 60. I have lots of free time, but I’d implode!
I just want to get to level 10-ish, so I can really slow down and balance WK with some grammar and hopefully start some reading. It’s not even important that I get all the kanji 100% correct now. I love the mistake retype script! The number of times I’ve said the kanji out loud as I type only for it to come up wrong and I’m like…? So I do it again and it was just a mistype. Or I type ‘not comfortable’ instead of ‘uncomfortable’ or something. I’ll pass on small errors as long as I recognize the kanji and the jist of the meaning. For me it’s about ‘do I understand (enough)’, not ‘is everything absolutely perfect’. I’m expecting to get deeper familiarity with kanji as I do more grammar, reading, etc. Which is how languages work, right? Not going to be too hung up on ‘let pass’ or ‘to let something pass’ right now, when I can barely make a complete sentence.
But I love the fact I can now flip through an N5 vocab or kanji list and recognize most things. Or when going through basic exercises I’m familiar with so many of the words… which was the point of me starting WK in the first place!
As people have said, as long as 1) you are progressing and 2) you are happy with your progress.
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Well thank you for this perspective…i didnt really think of it that way…I’m all for encouraging people to go at their own pace…I just don’t want the toxicity towards people whose pace happens to be fast.
There is this general culture on here that the people going quickly are “toxic!/speedFREAKS/to be ignored at all costs/that they must feel horrible about themselves and are just trying to make themselves feel better/are cheating/and the most pervasive of all…ARE NOT REALLY LEARNING JAPANESE”. The irony is that these sentiments are actually the toxic ones.
In reality most people going quickly mind their own business and are simply doing all their lessons as they come in and have no idea why people are attaching meaning to that.
I don’t know if anyone checks out the art appreciation thread (you should, there’s some hard core talent on that thread)…there’s an amazing drawing of an elephant on there. I go look at it often. It’s really good. I can’t really draw. I could sit down with a paper and pencil and in 10 years could never come even close to doing what that person did with that pencil…but I don’t attach meaning to that. I don’t say "oh, that person drew this amazing elephant to make me feel bad about myself. I tried drawing that elephant but I couldn’t and therefore that elephant is impossible. They must have cheated and traced that elephant. That person must really have low self esteem otherwise why would they have drawn this amazing elephant when most people draw lesser elephants. Everyone ignore that elephant drawing freak! Why are they being so competitive in their elephant drawing, these elephant drawers are the strava coms of wanikani. I just look at the elephant and think, wow…that’s a great elephant. The artist isn’t thinking about me at all…they just like drawing and happen to be good at it, probably because it makes them happy.
My message being, we shouldn’t attach meaning or tell our own stories about the intent behind people doing all their lessons at once…or for that matter…we shouldn’t tell our own stories about the intent behind any person’s actions. That is just them drawing their own elephants…you know? You just do you…be it fast or slow 
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In my own perception, only the people who highly prioritize Wanikani can level up in minimum time. 私自身, I’m happy if I can level up in 2 weeks or so.
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Going full speed is probably kind of dumb unless you have alot of time for the other areas of the language as well. You wouldn’t want to just do WK. Faster progress on WK, more time on immersion and grammar to get it to balance out. I’m doing one week levels, but I also spend 5-6 hours a day on immersion alone, that is active immersion. Passive immersion is even more than that. I’ve been at it for a year, and I’ve gotten some great gains, but don’t know if I’d recommend it for normal people, since the language literally is my life at this point. Two week levels is probably more manageable for most people.
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Yep, I’m with ya. Who’s to say whether one should go fast or slow? Do whatever feels right for you at the time. Right now I’m trying to go on a bit of a tear and muscle through levels as quickly as possible. But a couple of months ago I needed to slow down and concentrate on grammar and reading. Also, “life” has happened and I’ve needed to slow down for busy times at work or family emergencies.
That being said, for ME, I feel much more rewarded when I’m getting through levels quickly. If I’m going slow it feels like I will never finish WaniKani in my lifetime (I’m already a little long in the tooth). When I’m getting through levels in 8-10 days I feel like a BOSS! Plus, since I am continuing to read and write in Japanese, I am running into newly discovered Kanji and vocabulary more often and it reinforces my learning. If I start to get burned out, or life happens, then I’ll just ease up on the accelerator a bit, but for now I’m enjoying the wind in my hair.
マーク
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