I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but I appear to have burned all items at some point this year! Checking the upcoming content updates thread, I am already quite familiar with all the planned new material, so it looks like my WaniKani journey concludes here.
I started WaniKani back in October 2021, and hit level 60 in March 2023, completing the program in a year and a half, and reaching a comfortable N2 by the end. I made a brief celebration/reflection post here: Level 60/N5-N2 in 18 Months Living in Japan
In the time following I’ve passed JLPT N1 (December 2024) and have continued my studies at around the same pace as before. My study method is basically just building Anki decks from sentences I find in native material, though I have found some language learning resources continue to be useful, specifically the 新完全マスターJLPT N1語彙 book which has excellent lists of similar words and shows their different usages and nuances. That book continued to be useful even after passing the test comfortably. I kept the WaniKani app on my phone and did my reviews as usual whenever the notifications came up, but never really thought much about it until one day the reviews just stopped coming.
WaniKani remains my top recommendation for anyone just starting to learn Japanese, primarily for how it eases you into a study method that you can use for the rest of your life. Spaced repetition really is a game changer when done properly, saving untold hours of redundant review, and making lifelong learning projects doable in a matter of years. Theoretically one could start with Anki from the get-go, but I know at that stage I wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of setting it up myself, or known just how much it would accelerate the language learning process.
From here on out I intend to continue studying as before, just with more advanced native materials. I feel quite fluent enough, but I’m living in Japan for good now, so I’d like to be able to speak, read, and write at a native, college graduate level. That feels accomplishable in the next four years if continued at the pace of these first four. There really aren’t as clear progress landmarks post-JLPT (enjoy them while you can!) but I think aiming for 漢検2級 would keep me from slacking on the kanji side of things. At the same time, I am interested in learning Mandarin, and aim to start this year, but I’ll have to figure out how to balance that with Japanese and also y’know, my jobs and hobbies and social life and all the rest.
To anyone reading, thank you and good luck with your studies! I’m not setting any records with my speed here, but if I could give any advice it would be this: you don’t have to study “hard,” but you do have to study often to progress quickly. Of course, everyone has their own goals and relationship to the language, but I think there’s no avoiding the reality that infrequent study is harder and more arduous than frequent study. I find racking my brains to recall material from weeks ago to be strenuous, and if studying always felt like that, I’d be far less inclined to start. In other words, I’m lazy and don’t want to work hard, so I study a little every day. If you enjoy the grind and the sensation of mental strain, I recommend studying in irregular fits and starts, and taking long breaks to recover from intense sessions. This is a forum for an SRS system, so I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but there were a couple moments here and there when I could’ve used the reminder myself. Best of luck and thank you to everyone who helped make WaniKani what it is today.