I hope this isn’t too much of a duplicate of the many other posts that probably cover a similar subject - in summary, I feel I’m being overly cautious with the number of lessons I take, and not progressing very fast at all.
Now, I don’t want you to think that I’m blaming WaniKani for this or complaining in any way, this service is amazing so far, I’m just wondering:
How fast should I be doing my lessons, and what accuracy should I strive for on my reviews? In some ways I’m quite the perfectionist, leading to me always trying to achieve that sweet 100% - but I feel this is getting in the way of my learning.
Is it better to advance quickly, and gain a somewhat shaky but broader knowledge of kanji faster, or take it slow and drill them to perfection?
In my opinion, yes. I choose the side of more exposure over perfection. If I’m exposed to more and more kanji, then it will be easier to solidify them when I see them “in the wild”.
I used to be more on the perfectionist side, and that hurt me way more than it helped. But it also depends on just how quickly you go, too. You want to learn something.
only one thing counts on wanikani: that you’re doing your reviews every day. flu, hangover, phone screen cracked, doesn’t matter. the SRS is relentless and laughs you in the face if you think you can “take a little break”.
that being said, be as careful with your lessons as you feel is right. no need to rush. especially if you’re a beginner, do it slowly, but properly. you need a solid foundation first.
I’d agree with this statement for someone who’s at an intermediate level in Japanese. Accuracy be damned, throw kanji at the wall and see what sticks, clean up at lvl 60. Bam.
Alright then.
I’ll have a go at progressing faster (I have like 74 lessons lying in wait, but I’m sure that’s not as bad as it gets), and see if it works for me.
(Thanks for the quick replies!)
The system lets you lvlup when 90% of the kanji for the level are guru’d. You’ll get a new batch of kanji after you guru your radicals, which takes a while (3.5d).
So, do your radicals ASAP, then work on the kanji and vocab over the next 3.5 days, then finish the new stuff.
No need to do it all at once. Get the Reorder script and go to town.
I agree! But we still need to factor in one’s overall study methods and schedule.
@Dungeoneer64, I’d suggest trying to increase your daily number of lessons slowly (and by slowly I mean over the course of a few weeks or more) and see what feels right. You don’t want to be too comfortable, because you want to challenge yourself. That’s how you learn. But you also don’t want to overwhelm yourself because then you may want to quit. So just keep trying different things and you’ll figure out what works best for you soon enough, as long as you keep at it.
I’ve installed it with Tampermonkey (I use Chrome), but it doesn’t seem to work - I don’t remember the exact problem, my next review is in 2 hours, but it wouldn’t load. Might just be some dumb mistake on my part though
I started out pacing my lessons very cautiously as well, and it eventually levelled out to a point where I’m comfortable with the amount I’m learning a day and I’m getting dribbling of burns so my review amount has increased steadily rather than dramatically. I don’t think you’ll know how much you can handle til you have to handle it, but there’s nothing wrong with being slow and accurate and I think as long as you stick to it, either method will get you where you want to go in the end. 2c from a fellow slowpoke.
I’m doing roughly 9 day levels now (19 will be a little bloated because overhaul) but yeah you’ll either go too fast and want to slow up or start too slow and pick up the pace, it will naturally work itself out imo.
Edit: I was also doing mass grammar and copying a load of example sentences throughout all this though. WK is only one facet of learning after all. I think the general consensus is to have a couple of different learning materials is better than smashing 1 at the expense of other areas of learning.
I don’t care about accuracy much, but I’m not performing too bad (yet).
