I’ve made it to level 30, the first of jigoku levels!
It’s 9 months since I started, and if at the beginning it was very easy for me, since I knew few hundred kanjis, now I only know one or two for level.
It took me 9 months, so extrapolating I should reach level 60 in June 2023. Let’s see…
A few sparse considerations (for myself mainly):
even if it was funny, I was skeptical at first about how long I could continue to add mnemonic images, surely at some point my memory will be full and everything get mixed, right? Well so far so good. I remember mostly of the kanjis and their mnemonic images after months.
The most irritating thing in Wanikani for me now is the mix of onyomi and kunyomi in the kanji reading. Kunyomi are difficult to remember for me without any kana.
Since level 25 or so I discovered I can read without dictionary most of my books/comics. I also keep finding new words using the kanjis I already know, and they are often hard to guess. Maybe I should slow down wanikani at this point and start reading more?
Since around level 20 Wanikani is getting a real “burden” for me. Not in a bad sense, but it’s taking more than one hour a day, I need to plan everything to keep practicing it. It has become less an hobby and more a job for me. When I feel the pressure I take a day or two off, but I also want to finish it and it’s really useful for my daily life in Japan.
The biggest surprise is how easy has become for me to learn new stories for each kanji, I mentally change almost half of them from the wanikani because I find personal stories (that is from my personal memoriest) easier to remember. Most of mistakes are because I don’t remember the exact english term, even adding synonims.
Level 25 is also when I realised that reading was becoming exponentially easier, and I picked up some manga in the beginner’s book club (Yotsuba). If you can speak fluently, maybe grab something from intermediate? It would be a balance between kanji and grammar complexity, I guess.
Perhaps it’s time to invest in some userscripts? I’ve stopped typing my answers thanks to Anki Mode for the last 10 levels or so and that’s cut my review time down significantly. Other notable scripts are Reorder Omega and Double Check (uncommon vocab, leeches, etc).
I’m currently enjoying a lot 葬送のフリーレン manga. It’s not too difficult and not totally for kids. I also have a collection of illustrated books about art, religions etc. that I can read much easily now.
Novels (like combini nigen etc.) seem to be still a bit too difficult for me.
I totally avoid userscripts, in part because I use wanikani on my phone a lot, in part for security reasons (Greasemonkey), and also because I find easier to remember words if I type them.
