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

[kcrumpton]

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. It’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 app… 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 don’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 “recent lessons” until I’m confident in knowing it, then I don’t do the extra study again.

Some other things I found… I have the lifetime subscription and honestly I don’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. I’m about halfway through BunPro’s n3, and I bought (and downloaded a lot of) graded readers. I’m trying to go through one a night. I honestly don’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.

[pragmata]

Welcome back

[zbradleyx]

That’s awesome that you burned those reviews in the meantime, I’m sure that made getting back into it much easier.

お帰り！

[flowjam]

I think it’s easy to love motivation after level 30, as it is a big milestone that you’d like to rest on. I’m only on level 34 currently, but I’ve found myself postponing lessons much more than beforehand. Everytime I see a kanji I don’t know in the wild, though, it reignities my passion to finish. I’m glad you’ve returned, don’t let me catch up to you!

[UInt2048]

@kcrumpton

I find logging in to see 300 reviews in my queue

Welp, better knock out some of my 199…

Welcome back! Glad you didn’t have to deal with a whomper thousand-review avalanche!

Motivator for you: I’m only a level away from you - better get going

@kcrumpton

I honestly am not a huge fan of the mobile app… too many typos have cost me a burn. Or fat fingering the return button

What app are you using? They’re all unofficial - maybe there’s a better one with cheats features to fix that problem

[kcrumpton]

Tsukurame. It’s not bad, but it’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

[kcrumpton]

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

[UInt2048]

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

[KiwiSmint]

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