~ I apologize if I’m not posting this in the right place, I’m new ~
So, Ive been doing WK for a few months. It’s a consistent part of my routine that I don’t mind spending a couple hours on a day if I have the time, because I want to learn as fast as possible. I know I could go faster by doing reviews and lessons the second they pop up, but most of the time i make sure to have 0 reviews by the end of the day, and try to keep my lessons under control.
Today I noticed on a random thread someone had posted a screenshot of their numbers(?). They were higher level than me, around 15, while I’m 8. But they had 0 enlightened, and about 100 apprentice. Why is that?
These are mine. Is this a good ratio? Or perhaps i’m not timing my reviews correctly?
If anyone has any tips for better efficiency in WK (leveling up faster, better accuracy, etc.) I’d love to hear it - that’s the purpose of this thread! I don’t want to download any reordering scripts or the like, because I want to truly learn every vocab and kanji reading. Since i have to learn it all, what’s the point in pushing certain ones back to level up faster? So anyway, I’m definitely a bit insane when it comes to my Japanese studies. Any intense methods are welcome~
How can I go faster? It feels a bit disheartening when I see others seemingly doing only 50 reviews a day but leveling up every 7 days, while I do 100+ every day and almost never have lessons over 20, but can’t seem to level up any quicker… is it my accuracy? Or my timing maybe?
It can be a matter of timing as you were suspecting. Often a very small number of specific items will be critical for leveling up while the rest have no impact on leveling. So you move the ones that affect leveling to the front when the timing matters, and do the others later in the day whenever because they don’t affect anything else.
It’s not absolutely necessary to reorder to go at a faster pace, but it’s one reason why someone might reorder.
There are dozens of tips, strategies, and different approaches people do and have shared here on the forums (so many I can’t even fathom to list everything…). Ultimately, as you progress through levels, you will realize what works and doesn’t work for you!
From a personal standpoint, what I can think of right now as advice would be:
For recently learned items, it’s good to follow the SRS Apprentice times (4h - 8h - 1d - 2d) the best you can, because that can really boost your progress and make the newest items stick in the memory! I do not think one needs to do reviews a lot of times every day, but logging in 2x/day is a good thing whenever you can do that, as it will help with the work on your Apprentice items!
If you are into WK’s pre-made mnemonics, read them very carefully and really imagine that story! That works wonders for me, as it boosts my accuracy and helps solidify my way through Guru. Some people don’t like WK’s mnemonics and create their own, and others don’t even use mnemonics. Many work for me!
If you want to level up faster, I’d advise following the SRS schedule mentioned above for the Apprentice items (4h - 8h - 1d - 2d) whenever you can. That will make sure your items are going up to next stages faster! And, as you probably know, vocab items don’t matter for the sake of leveling up, so you can do them after you’ve started the radicals + kanji if you feel that’s good for you.
So then, it’s better log in multiple times a day and do reviews as they pop up rather than, say, logging in once at the beginning and end of the day and doing all the ones that built up (for faster leveling speed)? So far, I’ve been going by the rule the simply keeping everything at 0 as much as possible would be the fastest way, but that hasn’t been the case.
Not multiple times, but maybe two or three times a day whenever you’ve just completed new lessons.
That is because the newly learned Apprentice items are the most “unstable” and prone to mistakes (since you have just started learning them!) and the initial SRS schedule is narrower (4h and 8h after a lesson is completed).
If you do reviews only once a day, in that case, it is easier to get behind, as Guru’ing the Apprentice items will be done in 1d - 1d - 1d - 2d = 5d instead of 4h - 8h - 1d - 2d = 3.5d. It doesn’t seem much of a difference, but we usually have lower accuracy for those items too, so a few of them might bounce back more often than not, especially in later levels.
Reordering is pretty much required if you want to level up faster. Otherwise you’ll have to slosh through the bulk of past-level vocabulary before getting to start on your new level after leveling up. Vocabulary items are not required to be completed for you to level up, so going through them would set you back days or weeks, especially on middle levels when there are mountains of them.
That’s how people do level-ups every 7 days, reordering the lesson arrangement so they get all radicals and kanji first, vocab later when they have time.
You just need to do all your reviews and most of your lessons. It’s more work, but no one says you can’t do 7 day levels without reordering because it’s not true.
To OP, no reason to check all the time, just look at when you have a lot of reviews scheduled. You can let them pile up for a bit and it won’t affect your time much.
To level up consistently in 7 days, I found you really only need to do a few things. Get started on lessons right away and have all of your radical and kanji lessons done within the first day, but honestly as quickly as you can while still learning them. The vocab lessons are less important, but I’d definitely recommend trying to get it all done before you finish the level. Then, keep track of the current level kanji and radicals (specifically the radicals) and do those reviews the same hour they’re available.
When you guru the radicals, then you need to be sure to guru the new kanji as soon as possible. so keep track of when reviews are available for the items furthest from Guru and do them ASAP. I used reordering so I wasn’t just hoping the reviews I needed would happen to pop up early, it’s easy to abuse scripts but honestly just do what works for you. It’s not necessary at all to do max speed.
I had it down to a science by the end because I kind of enjoyed the challenge of trying to beat my personal records for fastest levels, but the same things apply for just shaving a few days off your levels. You don’t have to do it religiously, but just remember for the first half of the level, you need to focus on finishing radicals, and for the second half, focus on the items you’re the slowest on. (Sorry if this is too detailed!)
I forgot to mention, it’s also important to keep in mind which items you can and cannot get wrong. If you get an item that’s on Apprentice III wrong, it’s 2 days at the absolute fastest before you can guru it. If you’re getting to the end of the level or if it happens with radicals, that can set you back entire days. (Once I was almost done with a level before I was set back 2 days on a typo.) No shame in reviewing a bit on your own a bit between SRS cycles.
Another thing to consider is that there’s a pretty long way to go from 20 to 7, so by doing some small changes, you should still be able to get to maybe 10 or 14 day levels. 7 is speedrunning.
I do mine twice a day; once in the morning, once after dinner. That seems to be a pretty good routine for me.
Don’t worry too much about speed though. If things feel pretty easy, then add more lessons. If they are feeling a bit difficult, focus on reviews. Just don’t overwhelm yourself because you think you are going “slow”, this isn’t a race!
