I swear, I wasnt getting the kanji 思 in my head…failed it awfully a lot of times xD (both the reading and the meaning, mind you) It was annoying.
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When you meet characters like that, I find that it really helps to spend some time on it and work on a mnemonic of your own, or practice writing it down. I don’t do writing practice for all kanji since it’s not my focus, but you really need to uniquely concentrate on strokes and balance in order to make a kanji look right/pretty (especially if you use a calligraphy pen), and that helps improve your instant recognition.
As for me, the moment I start feeling even the slightest burnt out I reduce the number of lessons and do a new thing that I find exciting and renews my love for the language. Watch a new movie/series, read articles about the history and culture or even switch up my studying style and watch some videos that go over material I’ve already covered in a new way. Some of the kanji do start looking similar around level 10 and each person probably needs to develop their own strategies to reassess how well they learned them and how to distinguish them or risk getting frustrated as they start piling up, but I think the real hurdle was keeping up in December while I was already having a very hard time in-real life since I neither had the energy nor motivation. I believe this happens a lot. I felt a bit bad at first since things had been going so well, but ended up going easy on myself and just doing reviews with the occasional 5 lessons batch when I had some extra energy, and that really allowed me to almost seamlessly pick things up where I left them once the situation improved. I was having such a hard time that even if I pushed myself, I probably wouldn’t have properly learnt the material (in fact I do feel that the material I went over at the time isn’t as rock solid in my memory). So I’d probably say, try to be aware of both your mental health and if real life is overwhelming you, because it’s very likely to happen at least once during such a long term endeavor. In my experience, it’s much harder to pick a habit back up after you’ve burned and stopped, than if you keep up with some really light maintenance or preemptively decide/plan to take a break.
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14 and 21. I reset at 14 and 21 took me over 3 months to do.
Weirdly, I did 22 in about a week and I’ve slowed down again for 23 because I’ve had so many reviews that I haven’t felt comfortable enough to start with the new kanji.
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At first, even the simple naming of the levels had me worried…going from Pleasant into Painful? Turns out I still find it all Pleasant/fascinating. I did park all my lessons at the beginning of 19 to redistribute (re-learn and burn) my categories down. It wasn’t an overall desire to give up as it was a disappointment I wasn’t recalling some basics (not just leeches). A wall may still await me, but slowing down and trying to cement things better has helped me feel better about my progress.
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I have yet to make it to the point I want to quit. I have enjoyed the learning so far, but right after Christmas of last year/beginning of this year, my pace took a massive hit because I had a large number of very…heavy things happen in my life back-to-back that really suckerpunched me and kept me from being able to do my lessons and reviews as consistently as I had been. I would try and just fail repeatedly, so I slowed down quite a bit. I don’t really remember what level I was then, something in the 20s, I think.
I finally feel like I have gotten my rhythm back now, but as I have hit some of my potential burns, I’m realising a number of them are getting kicked back to guru, and I’m not sure if they come from that time period where my focus wasn’t as good as it should be, but I suspect that plays a part. Either way, knock on wood, seems like I’m holding up!
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I just recently came back from a long break in level 30 where I didn’t do any lessons and only did reviews. Till the extent where my apprentice items became 5 at one point lol
That’s because college life and internships made it too stressful for me to learn new stuff and my accuracy took a hit which impacted my confidence.
But now I’m getting back on track, expecting to level up some time tomorrow or day after!
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I reached the 20s twice and reset back to the beginning twice. Third time is a charm.
I’d say the death levels are the hardest ones of all. I found hell not so bad.
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29-31, definitely. It’s always around this level range that I get stuck (I reset a couple of times). And look where I’m stuck at again… :'D
Though life has been very weird ever since the pandemic hit last year, so I’m trying to accept that things aren’t going according to plan right now.
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Believe in the me who believes in you!
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Thanks for the heads up, I’ll keep this post in mind for future reference. Your insight is much appreciated! I am determined to continue learning for the rest of my life even if there are difficulties along the way, so it’s good to be aware of these possibilities now. I’ll definitely come back to this post if I do start to encounter major challenges in the future.
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The 20’s are brutal.
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This is where I am at at the moment, I can sort of stumble my way through simple books, games and mangas but I definately feel a frustration that after “all this time” (I know, it’s not) I still struggle soo much and there is still so far to go. Then I get a text bubble in a manga that I understand no problem and that feeling goes away 
You’re scaring me 
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Then how about this: They’re all just levels, nothing uniquely hard about any of them.
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I wanted to quit this morning because there was too much stuff stacked on top of my laptop and I couldn’t be bothered clearing the junk. But I made myself do it and now I’m glad.
Will I have the same urge to quit tomorrow? If there is stuff on my laptop (which I keep putting there), then most definitely yes.
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PS: embrace Vacation Mode when necessary; even if just for a day…no guilt 
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update: just levelled up!
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Ahh that’s sweet! I will do that, thank you!
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This makes me feel so much better than these perfect straight 7 to 8 day levels across the board 
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I think around level 5 or 6 a friend showed me the Mass Immersion Approach and using RTK to learn the kanjis. Which I thought sounded cool and wanted to try.
Turns out RTK was not my thing and I didn’t end up coming back to WK until over a year later. But now I’m back and have been back for some months.
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Not to continue the nitpicky timeframe, but November 2019 was 18 months ago = 1.5 years. Maybe we could say 13 months is around a year ago, but we’re significantly past the point of referring to November 2019 as “last year.” We’re equidistant between “last year” and “a couple of years.” 
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