After years.. I finally got motivated to get back into it

WaniKani
#1

I basically let myself sit around level 35 or so for years due to some significant life changes killing my motivation to do lessons. I did manage to do reviews this whole time, so I actually burned quite a few items and have made further lessons much easier. Something kicked in a few months ago and I realized that I either need to use it or lose it. Being heavily invested and interested in Japanese I decided on the former and started going through lessons again and trying to level up. It was pretty anxiety inducing as I find logging in to see 300 reviews in my queue extremely daunting and a large undertaking. Itā€™s especially hard for me to sit at the computer for long enough to crank them all out (and I honestly am not a huge fan of the mobile appā€¦ too many typos have cost me a burn. Or fat fingering the return button).

I have to say the extra study feature that was added is AWESOME. I understand that SRS is SRS, but honestly I suck at connecting mnemonics - especially the default ones that WK uses. I just donā€™t often remember them very well. For me the flash-card style of the extra lessons has been improving my ability to successfully memorize the Kanji / Vocab / Radicals. I basically do the lessons, then go through the ā€œrecent lessonsā€ until Iā€™m confident in knowing it, then I donā€™t do the extra study again.

Some other things I foundā€¦ I have the lifetime subscription and honestly I donā€™t feel super obligated to burn my way to 60 really quickly. I plan on getting to 40 from here, and sitting there for a couple of months before doing a sprint to 50 to repeat the same. Doing reviews for a couple of years and removing so many items from my daily queue helped me a lot.

The hardest part for me now is staying motivated on other fronts. Iā€™m about halfway through BunProā€™s n3, and I bought (and downloaded a lot of) graded readers. Iā€™m trying to go through one a night. I honestly donā€™t really understand how they are helping me, but I will let time tell on that one.

Also, amazon.co.jp + the kindle app are an amazing combination for learning Japanese.

Thanks for reading. Hope to be 40 soon! Any advice on getting through the higher levels appreciated, as well.

15 Likes
#2

Welcome back :smile:

1 Like
#3

Thatā€™s awesome that you burned those reviews in the meantime, Iā€™m sure that made getting back into it much easier.

恊åø°ć‚Šļ¼

#4

I think itā€™s easy to love motivation after level 30, as it is a big milestone that youā€™d like to rest on. Iā€™m only on level 34 currently, but Iā€™ve found myself postponing lessons much more than beforehand. Everytime I see a kanji I donā€™t know in the wild, though, it reignities my passion to finish. Iā€™m glad youā€™ve returned, donā€™t let me catch up to you!

#5

Welp, better knock out some of my 199ā€¦

Welcome back! Glad you didnā€™t have to deal with a whomper thousand-review avalanche!

Motivator for you: Iā€™m only a level away from you - better get going :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

What app are you using? Theyā€™re all unofficial - maybe thereā€™s a better one with cheats features to fix that problem :wink:

#6

Tsukurame. Itā€™s not bad, but itā€™s definitely screwed me on a few burn items. Usually if I miss an item due to a fat finger that I 100% knew I will just consider it burned from that point, though. Lol

#7

Yeah, I think itā€™s beneficial to me to push existing ones to master before starting new lessons. Too many apprentice / guru gets overwhelming quickly, and Iā€™m not in any huge rush.
The early 30s were some of the hardest levels I recall.

#8

Itā€™s okay to enable cheats - that should be on by default because of how easy it is to fat-finger

#9

Welcome back and congrats on not completely giving up!

(I found you method very interesting btw)

Good luck on those big review piles, see you at level 60 :wink: