Enraged by the slow speed of wanikani and asking the staff if I can pay double to half my timers, to no avail, I now just start studying the next locked stuff when I’m stuck in timer hell.
I see all the level 10s and up say it’ll get overwhelming later on and I’ll take it on faith they’re right, but for you fellow noobs like me who aren’t there yet, on desktop at least you can just jump ahead to upcoming radicals, kanji and vocabulary. Set your own 4 hour, 8 hour, 1 day, 2 day timers for the locked items you studied. Do your own reviews for them.
You already know the order the things will unlock, so just click ‘level’ at the top right of wanikani homepage and start studying your next locked upcoming items. Do this in batches of 5 or 10 and then set their timers on a timer app at the same time to keep it clean as possible.
Its not as fun as having the site do the timers for you but oh well. I’ve learned that as long as I’m thoroughly, faithfully reading and understanding each lesson, there’s no cap on the amount of rads, kanji and vocab I can learn in a day even on low sleep. I thought I might have trouble remembering it next day, but nope. Speeding and skipping through a lesson before you fully understand would be a critical error, especially on vocab. Get all that vocab down and dont skip the context reading practice.
If anyone has any other helpful tech for this kind of stuff please share it with me.
Sounds like you have extra time left after your reviews and a strong motivation for learning Japanese
I would suggest to fuel that energy into learning grammar right away then!
I can recommend the popular textbook Genki. This textbook is so popular that many people have made great tools to go along it. Those tools are so great, that I ended up using them and not really opening the actual book anymore. (So basically you can skip the step where you buy the book and use the resources for free). Also the kanji always come with furigana (the hiragana on top to know how to read them), so no need to worry about your Wanikani level, you can start the grammar now while still doing Wanikani on the side.
The way to do Genki, without buying Genki, is as follow.
For each lesson, first watch the video of TokiniAndy on youtube go through it:
Then do the exercises for the lesson on this website:
I’m no longer a noob but what I did back then between reviews/lessons was Tae Kim, Cure Dolly, and joining the Absolute Beginners Book Club here on the forums. Just let the SRS do its thing (the workload will ramp up, as you’ve already gathered) and use the extra time to engage with other aspects of Japanese. I’d also recommend looking into Satori Reader and I’ll second Akashelia’s GENKI recommendation.
One aspect of WK I do recommend you consider learning outside of the WK schedule is their radicals – when engaging with Japanese outside of WK you will invariably run into kanji WK hasn’t taught yet as well as ones WK doesn’t teach at all. Knowing all the WK radicals can help you break those down and make your own mnemonics as you go. Later radicals are also often made up of the early radicals and it’s annoying to run into a new kanji, break it down by radicals and make a mnemonic, and then not be able to recall your mnemonic because after learning a new WK radical you now perceive the radicals differently than when you made the mnemonic (WK actually has this problem baked into their own progression a few times if they haven’t fixed that yet)…
Learning some grammar will also help you understand the context sentences in Wanikani. Next time you study new vocabulary, try understanding the context sentences without peeking at the translations. They usually use words that you already know, but the grammar is the tricky part.
If like me, it is hard to not see/look at the translations as they are right there in front of you, there are ways to hide the English translation until you specifically hover your mouse over it.
Fellow noobs I have discovered how you can advance beyond the timers even more efficiently than how I first suggested. In the Wanikani addon lists there is one called Self Study which will let you do flash cards of any level even before you have unlocked it. It takes seconds to make a full flashcard run of every radical, kanji and vocab of any level you choose. This makes doing your own manual reviews more easy and efficient, humiliating even further the default timers which yearn to hold you back.
Fellow noobs who may read this in the future. At level 6.5 now and the studying ahead method is still working just fine. I am still consumed with fury and rage at the slow timers of wanikani like you all are as well. I cry out to the devs from my window in vain attempts for my plea to reach their ears, “LET US PAY EXTRA FOR 50% TIMERS”. By infuriating my neighbors, I hope it somehow amplifies my will and increases the odds of this plea reaching the minds of the devs.
Even at level 6.5, I have nothing to do and continue to study ahead. I still maintain 95%+ success on all reviews even when over 100 reviews at a time. There is not any noticed decrease in my recall performance. I will still take it on faith that at level 10 it will start getting overwhelming as all the vets have said. But so far so good. If you are following the tofugu guide which says do not start grammar until level 10 and with all caps he declared to TRUST THE PROCESS or something along those lines, at least know this, you do not have to be bound to the timers of wanikani for your total progress time to level 10. After that guidemaster taught us to learn hiragana and katana in mere days, he proved he is worthy of our blind faith and that we ought not rely on our own understanding when it comes to starting grammar early but reach level 10 on wanikani, like he instructed. I have saved the grammar resources provided in this thread but intentionally will not begin them until I have Gurud all radicals, kanji and vocab from level 1-10 and also gone through the tofugu grammar guide.
It goes without saying that if you speed through vocab and dont go through it with patience and faithful reading practice, you will only create a massive problem for yourself later.
My impression is that consensus opinion on the forum is that that particular piece of tofugu advice is bad, and you should start grammar sooner than that.
All furious fellow noobs, I was like level 4 when I made this thread and have endured the slow grind up until now, 3 days from level 18. Were the vets right? Will wanikani get faster around level 10? Will you finally be set free to study as much as you want?
NO!!!
It doesn’t speed up, they want you to endure the agony of having to pay 9.99 per 4 levels instead of being able to go at whatever pace you want. I WANT 2000 REVIEWS A DAY BUT THEY WONT LET ME HAVE EM. HOW MANY NIGHTS HAVE I SPENT HOWLING AT THE SKY BECAUSE OF HAVING NOTHING TO DO?
But listen here fellow noobs. The self study app would let you study and review ahead very easily but that broke a while ago right? Well there is an app called smouldering durtles you can get which let’s you select what to do for extra study, including levels you haven’t unlocked yet. So LEAP FOR JOY FELLOW NOOBS, I CAN HEAR KOUICHI SMASHING HIS KEYBOARD FROM ALL THE WAY OVER HERE, THE APP SMOULDERING DURTLES WILL LET YOU STUDY EASILY AT YOUR OWN PACE. THE CHAINS OF WANIKANI ARE BROKEN!
Mine still works. Sometimes it takes a hard-reload of the page in the browser to show up in the menu (I’ll skip the whole story of the reason behind that)
I’m sure Smouldering Durtles is good too, and it doesn’t change your point (I don’t think). Just a technical correction.
FELLOW NOOBS I AM NOW 27 AND 26 ON THE FORUMS, I HAVE FOUND WANIKANI GUILTY OF ANOTHER OFFENSE THAT YOU OUGHT TO KNOW.
In the 20s ive noticed wanikani start slipping way more unfamiliar vocab in the practice sentences for vocab they teach. ITS LIKE THEY ARE TAUNTING US BY SAYING “WE COULD OF ADDED THIS VOCAB INTO THE VOCAB CARDS ON OUR SITE BUT INSTEAD WE WILL TORMENT YOU AND GIVE UNFAMILIAR VOCAB TO YOU IN A PRACTICE SENTENCE WHERE YOURE TRYING TO GRASP A WORD USAGE.”
THEY DO THIS TO CAST A HEX OF DOUBT UPON YOU SO YOU WONDER, HMM DID I LEARN THAT OR NOT, WHAT DOES IT MEAN, GETTING THAT BAD DOUBTFUL FEELING IN YOUR MIND WHEN TRYING TO LEARN A NEW VOCAB FROM WANIKANI IS A BAD RECIPE KOUICHI!!!
THROWS ENERGY DRINK AT THE WALL
STOP BEING COWARDS, ADD ALL THAT VOCAB INTO THE LEVELS, GIVE US MORE REVIEWS. DONT YOU WANT WANIKANI TO BE A ONE STOP SHOP? WHY DO WE HAVE TO USE MULTIPLE SRS AND HUNT DOWN ALL THIS VOCAB WHEN YOU COULD JUST ADD IT IN? RAISE THE MONTHLY RATE AND ADD THEM.
AND WHILE YOURE AT IT, WHY THE HELL NOT ADD BASIC GRAMMAR PARTICLE SRS ON THIS SITE AS WELL? CHARGE ANOTHER MONTHLY FEE.
Fellow noobs, see the journey of me in this thread. If you are starting and want to go faster, don’t doubt, do it using the methods I’ve discovered here. Smouldering durtles app will let you review and skip ahead to study levels past where you are but you have to manually do it yourself without autoreminders for content you haven’t unlocked on wanikani yet.
The warning on Tofugu that says to prepare a method to capture unknown vocab that you come across in a seperate SRS like Anki is legit, because THEY WONT ADD THEM TO WANIKANI THEMSELVES THATS WHY ITS A LEGIT WARNING.
But anyways, continue doing your wanikani with great fury within, never doubt, never think they know better when you are excelling past their rate of lessons and reviews. YOUR INSTINCT IS RIGHT. NOT DOUBTING, THATS WHAT MAKES YOU STRONG. SKIP AHEAD. 0 lessons and reviews? LAUGH IN KOICHIS FACE WHILE YOU OPEN SMOULDERING DURTLES AND STUDY THE NEXT LEVEL.
goes back to watching jdorama instead of finishing textbook 