I recently read in this same hallowed forum, that some people think that level sixty posts are “overdone,” so I almost didn’t post this. But I’ve found that other people’s level sixty posts were both interesting and inspiring for me along the way, so why not? Besides, how often do you get to celebrate any achievement that takes this long? So, here goes. Sue me.
Anyway, I’m thrilled to have finally memorized every kanji in the Japanese language. Now when I start reading tomorrow, I’ll be able to read every word on the pages. I haven’t tried speaking yet, but I’m sure when I try (tomorrow), I’m pretty sure I’m fluent now. But I’m especially happy about learning every single kanj– What’s that? How many?.. Oh well… it’s a start. (Sometimes I crack myself up.) Really, even though I’ve been at this for a couple years now, I still feel like such a beginner.
About me
I am a 62-year old physician, still practicing full time in Central Florida. I have always had an intense interest in other languages. Studied Latin for six years in middle and high school. Two years of French, three years of German in college. Learned Italian during my opera phase. Have to know some Spanish if you live in Florida. I had always wanted to learn an Asian language, so when I returned to martial arts a few years ago and began studying in a traditional Okinawan dojo, it seemed like a good time to dive into Japanese. Besides, I already knew a few dozen Japanese words from my karate studies, so I figured, what the heck, that’s probably like most of the vocab I’ll ever need, right?
I had been studying various general materials (Japanese From Zero, Human Japanese, Genki), but decided I needed to focus on vocabulary, so WK just made sense as the next step. Like most of you, I suspect, I didn’t know how much time and dedication this was going to take.
A Few Stats
It took me almost eight months to get serious, but once I started level 4 (paid for the subscription) I’ve been fairly consistent, averaging 10 to 11 days per level. My routine is just routine. I do all my reviews and lessons on my PC at home, so I have a morning and evening session every day, and most days a third session just after work. Being a night owl, I almost never go to bed with pending reviews. My consistency comes not so much from dedication as from FOFB (fear of falling behind). I’ve really appreciated all the posts from folks who return to hundreds and even thousands of reviews. As much as anything, they have been my motivation to keep up.
I write down every lesson at least once; I think it helps my retention to write things down. I’m currently on notebook six. Always kept apprentice count less than 100. Guru count was always less than 600, until the past few weeks, because leeches (filthy little leeches, we hates them!).
Scripts I Used
WK stats. Does that even count?
Otherwise, I haven’t used any. This is more a function of my iOS, rather than any effort to avoid abusing the SRS. Being a poor typist, I have suffered many failed reviews from typos, misspellings, carelessness and going too fast. That override script would’ve been nice, but I don’t know if I would have been able to avoid misusing it. But I still remember failing my burn review for “sin” when I typed “sinn”. I’m not generally given to cursing, but I made an exception that day.
KaniWani
After reading jprspereira’s most excellent guide My Journey of 368 days (+ The Ultimate Guide for WK 📖 ) (which I highly recommend), I decided to work through KW also. I have found it generally to be more difficult, in part because it often requires a whole different set of mnemonics, and although I’m glad I have worked on it at this point, I’m not sure I would do it again, at least not without some modifications. It’ a LOT of SRS, basically doubling the number of reviews to complete on any given day. I’ve recently reached greater than 50% burns on KW:
Fast levels
Ha! I remember fondly looking forward to those last 10 or 12 “fast” levels, even calculating when I would finally get to level 60. I had seen so many previous posts from people who completed the last ten levels in about 30 days. The not-so-secret secret is that they really aren’t fast levels. The amount of material is about the same as all the other levels. Fast levels actually slowed me down, adding at least a full day per level over the last 15 levels. My accuracy has been lower over the last 10 to 15 levels also, so that hasn’t helped.
Other resources and Where to from here
My plan is to stay with WK and KW until I’ve burned everything. Still lots of leeches to deal with. I’d love to go through again someday and focus on other things like stroke order and those pesky example sentences, but not for a while. I have been working through multiple sets of graded readers from the very beginning, which has been very helpful. Looking forward to trying more native material, but I’m still pretty slow there. I’ve worked through Genki, Tae Kim, and all the Cure Dolly I can stand, and I do some listening practice almost every day. Now, I’m planning to use my time on more reading and non-kanji vocab. Speaking will have to wait for now, but I’m improving there slowly as it is.
Also, I had one hard and fast rule regarding my reviews, which was to never, ever go to the forums before completing my reviews and I only broke that rule, let’s see… almost every frickin day. Still, I have found the forums to be immensely informative and often entertaining. Thanks to all you regular posters, especially you seasoned level 60’ers who are always willing to answer questions, and also especially to those folks who are always posting cat pictures (you know who you are). Here’s one for you:
Thanks for reading. I’m looking forward to reading all of your level 60 posts. On the other hand, if you believe that these posts really are overdone, please let me know. Maybe I won’t post one the NEXT time I reach level 60 (Hey, it could happen).
Congratulations 
