Just came here from the new forecast widget update. I see your use case, and I agree that the current system does feel like it’s punishing you by withholding reviews you know is coming that day, but only gives it you at an inconvenient time for you.
However, I’d argue that the point of having an SRS system in the first place IS to withhold the items the system thinks you haven’t quite forgotten yet, so it can give it to you right at the moment it thinks you almost forget them.
If WK were to serve you items much earlier that you were meant to review them, then it’d fail to actually teach you those items, and that’s just not ideal for everyone.
Let’s say WK does have a system as you suggested, and you set it to give you reviews at 2am:
One day you do your lessons at 12pm.
Due to the new settings you’re shown those items just 2 hours later, at the 2am you just set.
You will most likely be able to pass those reviews easily, because, well, only 2 hours has passed since you first learned them.
This will only give you false confidence that you know those items better than you actually do, because you’re not letting the system give you the spaced timing it’s supposed to give.
What I’m saying is that it’s probably a good thing that you’re asked to wait longer to access those reviews, because that just forces your brain to work harder later, and in the world of memorization, more effort to recall = more retention!
what’s up with people arguing wanikani is perfect?
can’t you set your ego aside for a moment and try to see from someone else’s perspective?
just because something is a “non-issue” for you, doesn’t mean everyone feels the same.
clearly it’s a big deal to rustx, so why not try to see why?
if an item is already guru+, having it be reviewed a few hours early is not going to hurt retention, it might even help it.
you might say to just let it come the next day, but by default wanikani sorting, depending on how many reviews are waiting, it might not come back for a while.
let’s say you have 20 ready, but another 80 throughout the day
you have time to do all 100, but can’t
the next day, there are 80 waiting, and another 60 coming later, but you only have time for 50
this means the next day, you’ll have 90 waiting for you, some of which probably could have been done two days ago, if given the chance
maybe that’s not really the problem, but i don’t know because i have the time to do multiple reviews every day.
but at least i’m attempting to see their side, and i certainly don’t think wanikani is the be-all-end-all absolute perfect japanese learning app
But I do attempt to see their side. You’re strawmanning my opinion quite blatantly here; I never implied WaniKani is the perfect Japanese learning app there is.
Here’s a non-strawman opinion; I don’t disagree with you! Nor with rustx’s suggestion here. Given a certain requirement (say, that the item is Guru+ as you said), I think having this option could be a nice thing to have, without sacrificing too much learning potential. The WK team has proven that they’re willing to be a bit lenient with their SRS system, looking at the recent update to allow you to customize your review order.
I’m not opposing or disregarding anyone’s opinion here. It’s just that, given WK’s development speed… you might have to contend with the fact that this suggestion might take a while to be implemented… if at all. So my post was supposed to be some reassurance, that you know, if this feature never comes to fruitition, at least you can live with the knowledge that reviewing an item later than earlier could be a good thing for you.
(And this comes from a person who also only do their reviews once a day, if not more than that!)
wow, it’s almost as if i didn’t reply to anyone in particular and was instead voicing my frustration that people in general tend to say that wanikani doesn’t need any improvements
Thank you for the support, this problem is super bad if you have shift work / on call sort of work in which your free time and off work hours keep changing, it can end up with a loop of only 20 or so reviews available and then being slammed with 100+ the next day as you “““missed””” yesterdays reviews.
My journey here doesn’t have too many levels left (level 49 now, will probably hit 60 during 2026) but I really feel for the new users who will have to experience the same pain when they have shift work or a non set schedule.
As a side note I already additionally use Anki (Anki has always had a set time you pick yourself so its never had this problem), and Bunpro, the Bunpro team very quickly went out of there way to implement a solution in response to my same request over there, got a lot of positive feedback from other users who use it and I’m pretty sure its a staple part of their site now.
