So I have question I’d like to ask the community. I’d appreciate the honesty, however brutal it may be. I’ve been studying with WaniKani for close to eight months now and I’m only at level 7. It seems to me like this is at a glacial pace compared to those of others. According to the FAQ, completing all 60 levels including burning all items, two years is a reasonable speed. I have to admit there are some months were I don’t progress very much. I try to get at my reviews twice or at least once a day. If new lessons pop up, I try through get through them in batches of twenty a day. Does this seem too slow? Is there some advice someone can give to help me speed up the progress? Or should I even be worried about this? I’ve posted this around a couple times, realized it’s probably not the best idea to post only to Pleasant forums.
Regarding pace, it really depends on what it is you’re learning for. What are your goals? Are there time constraints? ‘Too slow’ is totally relative. I’d say there are three things you should consider – 1) Is there a time goal I am striving to meet; 2nd) am I able to keep up with what I’m doing without burning out; 3rd) am I moving at a pace that I find satisfactory/rewarding. If you can answer those 3 things you can get a sense of whether your pace is right for your own goals.
Edit: As for speeding up, the two things I can recommend is 1) doing reviews at least 3 times a day (in the morning, 4 hours after that, 8 hours after the previous review); 2) install the reorder script and make sure to hit all new radicals and kanji as they come up so you don’t get stuck waiting for things to guru to unlock the next set of things. You’ll obviously need relatively high accuracy (~90%) if you want to really keep things moving. As a caveat, this is just how to hit high level speeds (about 1 level every 9-10 days); you shouldn’t feel the need to keep that sort of breakneck pace if a more measured approach fits with you better.
Download the Reorder Script and do your Radicals+Kanji as soon as possible. Always do your reviews 4 hours after your lessons and you’ll be fine. Yeah your leveling speed is kind of slow, but thats not a problem depending on your goals.
There have been a few other threads like these, try to search for them with the searhc function and you’ll find really good answers by @jprspereira and the like
This is the @jprspereira post (maybe not the original one, but the info is the same):
I don’t use all the scripts listed there, but that’s exactly the strategy I used to maintain 7 day level up times.
Woah. Mind blown. Never even thought about half this stuff. Thanks for reposting <3
I use the modified Anki Mode to speed up reviews. I’m only on level 8 after 18 months but I restarted from scratch last summer. I just had 2 month off Wanikani, but I was doing Bunpro.
In addition to what @jprspereira has suggested in his post, I would like to mention a few things:
You will hear people mention over and over again that there is no such thing as “too slow” and from a purely educational standpoint, this is largely true. It is important however to bear in mind the following factors when considering the speed at which you progress:
- Frustration: leveling up at a pace of one level a month might be causing you some frustration. If this is the case, your pace is indeed too slow.
- Practicality: is your pace inhibiting your progress in other aspects of your education? If so, you’re too slow.
- Cost: at a certain point it becomes uneconomical to pay month-to-month. One level a month is definitely not economical for a monthly payment plan.
Personally, I think you’re about half the speed that would be advisable.
Good luck!
THANK YOU!
Hey @VegasVed, this is offtopic but it seems that you just reset your level? Or did this happen a while ago? What level were you before reset? Sorry I’m a bit nosy 
I was at 16 when I reset. This was two months ago. Taking it slow.
For me, when I started WK my grammar was pretty much non-existent. So I ignored the context sentences, since deciphering them would take me forever. Now that I’ve learned some grammar, I feel like the WK context sentences are pretty excellent reading exercise. I’m really glad I reset.
Fantastic, good to know 
What resources did you use for grammar?
Never mind. Just found a relatively recent post where you suggest Tae Kim 
I use Tae Kim for reference, take a Japanese course for speaking practice, and use Bunpro to test my knowledge.
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.