Before I get into this wee little worry I have, let me say that I love this platform and everything it has to offer. I would not have come up with a system like this on my own, let alone stay consistent with it.
I started WaniKani on March 15th 2025 and I’m level 12 now, slowly approaching level 13. I’ve experimented with doing 20 new lessons a day, but with my job and everything else life has to offer, that quickly became too much, so I went back to 15 lessons a day. On average, I do my reviews twice a day.
I remember reading that it’s possible to get to level 60 in just over a year, but considering I’ve been at it since March 15, I think that’s not really possible and I’ve been wondering if it has been the same for everyone else reading this? Is the pace at which one would have to go to get to level 60 in just over a year too much for the average Japanese learner?
Would love to hear your thoughts, take care and cheers
We’ve been at it for about the same amount of time seems like. I also started around in march apparently two weeks before? I’ve been doing 4 textbooks which is why I’m only 16 and not much higher.
Its technically possible to complete in one year and several users have accomplished it but at the cost of a ton of time a ton of reviews almost totaling 400 a day. Theres a famous thread everyone who speeds will link to.
I think 10-15 is the normal person with a life and things to do speed. For speeders 25+ is the right amount but it also implies you have a lot of spare time. I also started in march it definitely feels like the year has already gone by and I’m still low level, but in this time I finished 4 textbooks and I’m working on the 5th. I think 15 is a perfectly acceptable number of lessons to do every day especially if you have life commitments. I was doing 5 lessons a day doing textbooks so I think you are doing well. At this pace maybe in another year and a half you will complete? Some have taken 5 years. Even at my new 25 lessons a day speed, its forecasting for me to finish by September 2026. Assuming everything goes well lol.
What matters is completing and finding the best pace for yourself.
You can have a look around the WaniKani > Level 60 Celebration category to get an idea of how long other people are taking. There’s a pretty wide range. But in my opinion, the only wrong way to do it is to take long breaks while your reviews pile up. Consistency is what matters, not speed.
Something else to consider besides pace is direction: I think (I may be wrong!) that the order lessons arrive in “naturally” is not the order that will get you to the next level faster—if you find yourself with numerous days where there are fewer lessons than your cap, that would be a sure sign that this is happening. Even within the daily lesson range that you find comfortable, it might make a difference whether you’re letting WaniKani batch lessons for you automatically, or using “Advanced” to prioritize radicals and kanji. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with the default order, but as an aspiring speedrunner I’ve discovered it’s essentially impossible to go quicker without taking those reins for yourself.
Makes sense. Yeah, 400 reviews a day wouldn’t go well in my case. Thinking about it now I think I’m okay with taking 2,5 years to level 60 instead of just over 1 year if that means I have more mental bandwidth for other life commitments
Unless you’re a true sprinter with lots of time and iron self-discipline, I think you’re better off approaching WK as a marathon rather than a sprint. Finding a sustainable pace and maintainable routine is key. I very quickly dropped my daily lesson count from the default 15 down to 12, which felt much better, and found I make more progress studying in morning, when I’m fresher, than later in the evening when I’m tired. Try tweaking different variables and find what works best for you. What you want to avoid is burning out and giving up.
Same level. Double the time. So, nothing to worry about.
I feel I am really slow with currently only ~6 new lessons a day and a level-up time of a bit more than a month. Took me 5 months to get from 12 to 13, after, ironically, going to Japan. Kept the vacation mode on longer than I should have, and then eventually failed on every review.
There’s nothing wrong with going slow. I started learning Japanese on January 2nd, 2025, and signed up for WaniKani shortly after. We’re at a similar level, and I generally level up after about a month.
I don’t worry about the number of lessons per day. For most of my time here, I just made sure I had between 50 and 60 items in the Apprentice category. That was good enough for me, and I could spend about 30 minutes to an hour a day clearing out all my reviews and doing lessons to keep my apprentice items where I want.
When the new dashboard came out, I learned about the “learning zone” and the idea behind it, and I saw a better graph showing the distribution of items in each SRS category. That’s when I decided to speed up a little. Now I keep around 70 items in Apprentice, and I’ll occasionally go over there if I have a lot of items in Apprentice 4 that are about to move up to Guru. There’s a slight uptick in the number of reviews I do each day, but not enough to be more than I can handle.
It’s certainly possible to get to level 60 in just over a year, but it requires somewhat intense studying. Noone said you absolutely have to go at such pace…
I think what’s important – is to find your own pace that works best for you – and proceed with that pace. Sometimes you’d be able to do more and sometimes you’d be able to do less. But as long as you keep doing your reviews every day – you’ll get there!
I myself turned out to be a very slow learner. I joined WK in early 2016 and initially I was going at exactly the pace that would let me finish in just over a year… But then, somewhere around level 30, I started to burn out and at level 37 stopped completely… Wasted a year trying to force myself to study again, ended up having to reset to level 1… And there were several such falls…
As a result, I’ve only managed to reach level 60 last year – it took me 8 years… But so what? The important thing is – I got there. I can finally read my favorite manga without any problems!
I sure hope it would take you much less time than it took me, but the important thing is – go at your own pace and don’t worry about whether you are slow or not. This is not a race. The way one arrives to knowledge – is highly individual and hard to compare…
I started at the end of November last year I believe, and i”m not much further.
You are only as slow or fast as you want to be. There’s no good or bad. Learning isn’t a race. If life demands more time, lower your lessons but keep doing reviews.
I see tons of people here who reach Lv. 60 within a year (or year and a little more). But thats just not for me. I don’t have and or want to spend so much time daily on wanikani. It would give me too much stress trying to rush it all. So this is better for me.
I think there are people who spent like 1.5 hours each day and not too many reviews, taking less than 2 years to level 60 (somewhere in WaniKani > Level 60 Celebration)
imo, since vocab and Kanji aren’t the only aspect to learn, I’d say don’t worry. Rather, maybe aim for at least N3 equivalent of skills in n years. (Or higher, since having a lot of Kanji to be able to read anyway.)
Rather than just time used, it also depends on studying skills, and also amount of immersion/usage. Studying skills can matter a lot for things outside SRS, like grammar and practical application. How many minutes per day actually count as effectively studying?
If you aren’t doing anything for Japanese outside 15 Wanikani lessons, you probably don’t have enough time to learn Japanese to fluency. It’s not a matter of leveling speed, but a matter of the tyranny of the forgetting curve. The items you are starting to burn will fade away without starting to read Japanese. Resetting to solve this is the worst thing you can do.
I don’t say it to discourage you but maybe look into supplementing your vocab with Anki (which never stops reviews on your cards), this will be useful to at least keep what you’ve learned until a time where you have more time to learn. And that’s if some sort of fluency is your goal, as they say “languages are the only thing worth knowing even poorly” so a low language level can still be nice.
I’m only half way and I’ve been at it for about 3 years… I don’t think the time matters, you just need to keep up at a rate you find maintainable. Even if it takes years, you’ll have come so far from where you were in the beginning.
I’m on level 21 after two years. At the current rate it’s likely to take me well over five years but after a lot of pain I’m actually much happier with my slow progress. My review count blew up a year ago so I went back a level and focussed on getting my apprentice count below 125 (no new lessons until lower than 125). I get through about 180 reviews a day but it can take over a month now to level up. If you have more time it’s easier but I’m ok with about an hour a day. And I’m still enjoying it and loving that I can get a rough meaning in a lot of sentences now with what I’ve learned so far.
