At What Level Did You Nearly Quit?

I’m just curious! Is there like a ‘common’ point where there’s a wall, and if you push past it you’re on the home straight?

I’m only on level 5, but I’m curious to know if there are ‘standard’ levels where people tend to give up/take a long break?

Was there a particular point when you nearly threw in the towel? Was it cause of the amount of dedication needed, life circumstances, loss of interest, too difficult?

~ Elle :heart:

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Your question reminded me of this:

Seems like most drop off at level 5, and then we are just steadily whittled down except for the few destined for 60? Something like that.

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I had most issues straight at the beginning, since I told myself, that it was probably a “stupid idea” to learn a new language, that I might never even find a real-life usage for. But ever since then, it went relatively smooth.
From what you can tell, the most people stop using WK throughout the first few levels, which you can also see here:

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I quit studying kanji at level 29 a few years ago, because I felt that I knew enough kanji, the kanji I was learning was very specific, and that I was better off doing something else.

I came back. :smiley: (Lots of free time.)

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It’s seems like it’s commonly believed there’s a wall around level 15 where a lot of people drop away, but that’s not really borne out by the stats in the thread DasOcean just posted.

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I’ve had some pauses, and after that a (soft) reset. I was level 14 and 25ish when resetting.
Never really quit though, the amount of Japanese content I consume is too high to really quit, I’m practically constantly learning.

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Late teens, the entire 20’s, at 31 (due to accumulation of 20’s)
Basically I hate the 20’s :rofl:

I did reset at 19 (pushed to hard) and 42 (script abuse since mid 20’s, only did kanji after I gave up (knew it was useless, did it for fun, when already decided to reset))

Also did a soft reset at 31 after that. Stopped, burned all, unburned all, then continued again (should have just reset! :rofl: )
I just found the 20’s hard -_-

Rest has been much better though =)

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I mean, I’m only level 6 and I’ve almost quit sometimes since level 5 xD I just keep pushing through though, even if I’m going slow as heck.

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While i never had the exact feeling of downright >quitting<, the levels from 15 to 25 or so gave me a hard time. Mainly because of the thought of having studied for several months by then and still not being able to put the language to use (mind you, i studied grammar from the beginning). After that i just accepted the fact that language learning, especially asian, takes just a huge amount of time and effort.

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I have never felt like quitting, but I have had periods where I have been going real slow. I used two months on my last level since I had to focus on leeches to not overwhelm myself. Since level 25 I have focused more and more on reading, listening and grammar. To find time for that I have been going slow and have had weeks where I just do reviews and not lessons. You just have to find what you need and want to do to continue your Japanese journey your way :blush:

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The stats are a couple of years old though, things might have changed since then :thinking:

I burned out and hit a wall at level 37. 2 years later, back in October, I reset to level 15, and now I’m almost back where I was, in a much better position.

As far as where it started to get tough for me, the 30s were where my leeches started to build up, as you start to get more and more very similar complex kanji at that point. If you’re too careless going into those levels, you’ll be overwhelmed.

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When I first started I quit around Level 3 (right before I had to pay, but because of that. that was is beginning of 2019). Life circumstances got in the way, I burned out and had to take a break from life, didn’t even know what my priorities were after that.
In December 2020 I came back, because I remembered about learning Japanese and how I did initially have fun. I was also feeling better mentally and physically. I also got the special Offer Email that you get every year at the end of the year sale. For some reason it felt right to start again so I did.
To be honest I also just want to keep on going to prove to myself that I can stick with something for a longer time. It does get demotivating at times because I always think that I have no real usage of actually applying it in real life. I just love learning Kanji, it’s a cool skill to have what can I say.
So I am just taking it slow, and not rushing, sometimes I do more and sometimes I do less, the goal is not to finish as fast as possible, but to finish, and to finish with the kanji actually sticking in my head.
Haven’t hit so much of a roadblock since I started again fully in January (I rarely even missed a day), but I am sure it will come eventually, but the goal is to push through.

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I have no idea what you mean by “a couple of years”. 2019 was last year. :stuck_out_tongue:

That said, it’s an old belief, not a new one.

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I burned out for the first time at level 7 at which time I took a seven month break. When I came back I reset back to 1 and then levelled back to 10. I then burned out again and came back after another half a year to over 2000 reviews. I decided not to reset then, because I’d already gone over the 1-7 content twice.

That was the start of lockdown last year and I managed to clear that review stack and start levelling again, which I did till 24. I didn’t burn out at that point, but I DID stop doing reviews when the new WoW expansion came out and failing to put myself on vacation mode meant that I had a massive stack of reviews build up again. Having been doing WaniKani for nearly two years at that point, a lot of my reviews were master or burn reviews and when I finally started trying to get back into things, I found my ability to remember stuff shocking.

So I reset to 10 again the other day.

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I’m only at level 6, and I have consistently done my reviews.
But man, the moment I fail a review for the 50th time, I’m ready to give up.
I’m not, because I have a goal, but still…

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This is similar to my experience. Kinda gave up at level 36 back in 2017, in that I let my reviews pile up until I had about 2000 of them just sitting there… Finally reset to level 15 in 2020 and have been doing a better job at working slowly and steadily upward. I just recently started seeing material I’ve never seen before, and so I’m hoping I can make it through this time!

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I’m nearing the end of Level 31 and I’ve hit a wall this week because of work and my normal life. I’ll probably pick it back up this weekend, but this past week has been rough… and I really wish to devote more time to studying grammar and encountering kanji in my textbooks rather than on here attempting to maintain review stacks out of context.

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Feeling down… almost every level. Feeling like quiting almost never…

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I blazed through to level 16, caring more about levelling up and getting a 100% correct review percentage than actually learning. It burned me out pretty hard and and I took a break from everything Japanese for about 4 years. I reset to level 5 in October (mainly because I didn’t want all that time I originally spent to be wasted) and am finding it much easier now in that I’m taking things slower and have a healthier attitude towards learning, aiming to be more of the tortoise than the hare.

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