Am I meant to do lessons every day?

I’ve been using WaniKani every day before bed for about a year, doing reviews and a set of lessons every day before bed (I very rarely do reviews in the day). I don’t think I’m speeding through it, in fact I’m going a lot slower than the advertised two years that WaniKani likes to talk about on the landing page. Over time, I’ve gradually been getting more and more reviews. I remember when 70-100 was a horrific thing to see in the forecast, but I’ve just done 170 and if I’d have gone to bed an hour later I’d have done 200 reviews in one sitting. I had 150 apprentice items, down to 133 after that session. Should I take a little break from lessons to sort this out? The idea of skipping lessons feels wrong, since I’ve managed to keep a year streak. If you guys think its fine, I might. One reason I only do one set of lessons a day is because I’m a bit exhausted after doing loads of reviews at once.

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There’s nothing magical about a “lesson streak”. If you feel you need time off, take time off (and still do reviews if possible). It’s good to have a habit of some sort but that doesn’t mean you can never catch a break.

I’ve stopped doing new lessons for about a month twice when I felt that nothing would stick anymore and each time I’ve come back with more energy.

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Usually I just Do all Lessons In 1 day Learning Radicals at Morning Kanji at Noon Ad Vocabulary AT Night . If I am Sick I do The lessons Next Day .
If I Don’t Fish Lessons in 1 day it incredibly slows down the speed of finishing wanikani .
For Me usually It takes 1 week to finish a level .
And I have dont have any heavy reviews My Way

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If you feel like your workload is too high then yes, certainly

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How many lessons do you do every day? In my opinion it is good to keep a routine, so instead of stopping the lessons maybe reduce the number? You can change the size of a batch of lessons in the parameters and still do a batch every day. :slight_smile:

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In that order?

That’s my preferred order for sure. Doing my reviews every day isn’t up for debate. Gotta do 'em (ideally all of 'em, but I’ll admit to slacking on rare occasions).

But lessons? How many lessons I do each day depends on my remaining mental energy and how difficult my reviews have been recently. Difficulty has two metrics: the sheer number of available reviews each day, and the percentage I find easy to answer.

I don’t remember when I stopped doing all my lessons every day but it was likely close to level 11. I still get to 0/0 on occasion and it’s a great feeling, but I’m a lot more religious about getting my review queue down to 0 each day than I am about lessons.

If speed is a priority then doing all your lessons (and your 4-hour and 8-hour reviews) is important. Personally, I’m more interested in quality of retention than quantity (or “levels”) so lessons are far less important to me than reviews.


Also, I try to keep my daily number of reviews performed between 130-170 (overall average from the beginning of time is about 130). Once it starts creeping up on 200 it starts to feel like a slog.

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New lessons and leeches are what makes up your apprentice queue. I feel like at the pace you have been going, ~150 apprentice items is fairly high. Maybe there are some leeches holding you down?

Your daily work load is driven primarily by apprentice and guru items. Conventional wisdom is to keep that total less than 400 (or less if you want to be doing fewer reviews).

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The most common algorithms I’ve seen are “Apprentice around 100” and “Apprentice + Guru/10 <= 150”.

Some idiot even wrote a script to make this easier to manage. :grin:

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i do radicals->kanji->vocab the latter of which i’ll try to stagger out over the days of moving the radicals/kanji up towards guru. usually i’ll save vocab after i’ve gotten radicals to 1 day to next review so that when i get new vocab for guru’ing the first round of kanji it’ll be spaced out.

To a very crude approximation, the rate of progress through WK can be represented like this:

[rate of doing lessons] X [rate of doing reviews] X [accuracy of reviews] = [rate of progress]

  1. As any of these approach zero, your progress will stall out
  2. I assume you mean you are doing 5 lessons a day? I think the typical level has about 150 items, so that means your maximum rate is about 30 days per level. That would put you at about 12 levels in a year, which is about where you are.
  3. 5 lessons a day and high accuracy wouldn’t leave you with 150 apprentice items, so I’m guessing you have lower accuracy which is dropping items back down to apprentice, leaving you with a growing pile of reviews.

As others have mentioned, taking a break from lessons to get a handle on what’s already in your queue can be very beneficial. You probably have items that keep popping up. Take some time to figure out new approaches to help cement those in your memory, and get those apprentice items down to a more manageable number. You’ll probably find things feel a lot smoother and less stressful.

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If you can, do fewer reviews several times a day. That will help with your burnout.

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It’s normal for reviews number to get higher and for you to get used to doing more of them in one sitting. It’s all habit.

But, if you feel it’s a burden for you, just slow down how fast you’re going through your lessons, as that controls the gas pedal of WK. Gradually get fewer apprentice items and so get fewer reviews per day to do. :slight_smile:

for the past 40 something days, I have been doing like 200 reviews daily and now it doesn’t feel that bad. Maybe you just need to power through it for the first few days?

How many times a day are you doing reviews a day? Three times a day would be optimal for the SRS, for you to hit the 4 and 8 hour marks of reviews after lessons. I think it’s great to do a set amount of lessons a day, but it’s totally fine to vary it according to your forecast/schedule/workload.

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If you feel like need a break, do not stress yourself because of some lesson streak.
That being said, getting more and more reviews a day is quite natural. Even if you did perfect reviews, at the time burn reviews come in your review load would have doubled compared to the start. (4 apprentice + 2 guru + 1 master + 1 enlightened to review)
Your apprentice count seems to be a bit high though compared to the frequently recommended limit of 100. However, depending how close this is to a batch of lessons you did, it can be just fine. Personally, I usually go up to about 150 the day after a level up and end the level at about 50.
If you want to see fewer reviews, you could do fewer lessons, but I have a question for you.
Do you frequently get the first review after a lesson wrong? In that case, I would rather suggest to do some reviews on the morning after doing lessons as well. The timing of the first two reviews (4 and 8 hours) is meant to match the time after which an average learner has just not forgotten the item. So, extending the time till the first review to something like 20 hours might be to your disadvantage.

One of the most helpful things in language learning (and learning in general) is to know yourself and to have fun. If it is too much, take a break.

You aren’t racing with anybody. Do what is best for you. Burnout is real and can completely stop your motivation. Enjoy the process. :slight_smile:

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I try to keep a 100 lessons at the apprentice level. This varies due to the fact that sometimes I learn new strange words which I have a hard time getting familiar with. Those are the times when I take longer to complete a level. Also, every individual has certain vocabulary that somehow keeps forgetting.

It really fluctuates. If you have a bad day, don’t skip your daily lessons and do just a bit even if it’s a laughable amount of time spent. IF you end up skipping a day don’t blame yourself or overcompensate.

What’s important here is to avoid getting burned. That’s when you lose motivation, break the habit and most likely end up taking break. Try to live in the present as much as you can, that if you struggle.

Some people can process information way faster and thus are able to complete levels in no time. Don’t be fooled, that has nothing to do with being smart.

in hell levels I have spent almost 12 days without doing any lesson because my apprentice was above 90 (my limit)

but as soon as it decreased, it went straight to 56, and then I could do 20 lessons a day again

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Here’s the thing. When I learn new radicals and kanji I usually do 10 lessons a day. If I find it easy I might push it to 15.

Now vocabulary works differently because once you are familiar with the kanji and radicals involved it becomes highly intuitive. Depending on the content I can do 40 lessons of vocabulary without breaking a sweat.

What I prioritize is not to get burned by the overwhelming amount of new information when starting a new level. In some occasions more time is required for a word to click in your brain.

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