Hello one and all. I first joined WaniKani in 2020–I think WK Stats has me at 2200 days of being a WK User. Now, I know that so many individuals have finished to Level 60 in the time I’ve simply ~thought~ about getting back into it, but there has to be others like me out there who come back around and level up a couple times and take a break or whatnot.
All this to say, it has always been a dream of mine to learn lots of kanji and get invested in my learning, so I’m here to just throw into the ether my intentions to at least hit Level 30 by the end of this year. I paid for the lifetime, why not use it?
So, if you are here after a large break and feel motivated to share in case it helps you feel the push to open the app and smash those reviews, share that with me here.
Long live my WK lifetime subscription, and may I (and you!) find the power to burn everything by the time I’m 35 (in six years). And may I pass N2 in December!
Heh. This is so me. I’m coming back after a year away, but I joined Wanikani in 2012. 2012. Yes. I am that bad at it. I’ve taken breaks when life got in the way, but usually reset because I can’t be the only one who doesn’t want to sift through 4000 reviews to figure out what they remember.
I’m going for being able to read by the time I’m 40 (I just turned 37). Hopefully I don’t take any more breaks (in my defense the last couple have been due to 3 surgeries, an abscess in my spine, blood clots in my legs and a whole host of other issues. Walking with a walker at 35 due to pain screwed up my ability to study a bit) but if I do, I hope they’re short.
I’ve been in vacation mode since October of last year, with a backlog of a few hundred reviews awaiting my eventual return - not quite ready to jump back in yet, but I’ve been using the Kakehashi app (on iOS, but there’s now an android beta as well) to do random testing on the kanji that I’ve ‘learned’ up through level 17, and it’s really helping me to review the 500 plus kanji characters and the vocab that I’ve covered so far via WK, without actually invoking the SRS.
I’d definitely recommend it as a way of getting ready to resume your learning trajectory.
I joined back in 2021, but have largely taken a break since then. I’m just now starting to get back into it, and planning on getting more involved in different WaniKani groups / clubs.
Hoping to level up to level 30 by the end of the year!
Don’t worry, I’ve been paying my monthly discounted subscription to WK since 2014 and I’m not even level 30 yet so there is always someone slower than you I’ve taken plenty of breaks (obviously), but WK isn’t the only way to learn Japanese. Eventually I started trying to play games and read other media in Japanese and I would look up words and learn that way. I’d come back to WK and I’d be “learning” kanji that I already knew, which made it a lot easier to progress. My advice to anyone is that if you’re feeling burned out, go pick up some sort of Japanese media that you have always had as your “goal” and just start powering through it. It will take a bit to get momentum, but eventually you’ll be flying through reading and learning/retaining new words left and right. WK will always be there to return to for filling in the gaps.
My advice for anyone lvl 20-30 is to play the original Ace Attorney trilogy. I’ve found that a LOT of kanji and vocab that you encounter a billion times in those games are in levels 20-30 and it’s a great kind of supplemental fun non-WK way to learn.
Active, on and off, since 2017 here, and still only level 43. There was a kind of threshold for me around level 33 where I got overwhelmed by previous reviews I got wrong, so much so that I had thousands of reviews pending and dozens of lessons waiting. I kind of left it all there for months, maybe a year, before getting back to it, 10 reviews at a time, until I got it down to below a hundred pending. Only then did I start new lessons, and no more than 10 each day only if I have less than 100 reviews in the next 24 hours. That’s my limit, otherwise I get overwhelmed again. We each have our own journey through kanji learning, so don’t give up. One review at a time and we’ll get there.
I feel this on being overwhelmed—I was in Japan for a year during 2023 and was bummed I couldn’t get though wanikani, but really I was already learning so much everyday in my rural town that I couldn’t pick anything up in my brain that was extra!
I had been spending time learning kanji independently from WK as well through a tutor in the second half of 2025, but I find I struggle to keep it for more than a month. I’m hoping to review all those and the vocab closer to December.
Right now, I’m spending time catching up on vocab from previous levels I neglected (plus ones that got added that last few years). So I’m doing about 18 lessons a day. When I am caught up to the current level mostly, I’ll stick to between 10-15 lessons a day depending on the amount of vocab in a level following a pacing guide I found that levels you about every two weeks. That will get me to level 33 by the end of the year I believe, with wiggle room for a teeny break or two.
I still remember that random block of levels with legal vocab. Playing Ace Attorney at that time probably would’ve made me hate them a lot less. They got a bit of use in the Alice in Wonderland world of Kingdom Hearts, at least.
I started in March 2020 and am on level 20. What level are you? Slow and steady wins the race. But we aren’t steady. We keep plugging along. I’ve prioritized my reviews over learning new, and started KameSame to help go from English to Japanese. I was excited to take N3 when I go to Japan, until I learned you have to be a resident in Japan to take it there. -.- I was hoping to get to 60 by 2030, but at this rate, 2040 will have to do…I do like that my skill is increasing instead of decreasing.
Same here, just checked my heatmap and I started back in Oct 2020. Been on and off over the past almost 6 years. But started again last year and have stuck with it (except over the Xmas/New Year break). The main thing that motivated me again was I finally bit the bullet and booked a trip to Japan last year, leaving on the 2nd of May (I’ll only be at about level ~41 by the time I go, not the level 60 I wanted to be the first time I went).
Coming back to ~1500 reviews waiting for me was definitely overwhelming. But it is manageable. I would wait the clock ended in :00 and would deactivate vacation mode and try and get through as many reviews i could in about 30-40 minutes, not caring about how many I had completely forgotten over the years. Then I would reactivate vacation mode. I kept doing this until I had less than 0 reviews, with only ~100 apprentice level items. It was only then that I started doing lessons again.
I first started in 2017…the first time around I got to level 13 where I then proceeded to fall off a cliff with my reviews. I also had a lot of bad habits - using plugins that made it feel like I was cheating the srs. I’ve restarted several times since then, but it’s been a few years since I’ve actively used the site. Started over once again in January this year and I’m determined to stick with it! Going to keep my reviews to under 100 apprentice items at a time and spread out my lessons more. It’s been interesting to see how the site has evolved over time!
I am so happy I am not the only one. I left WK last year because i was busy and then afraid of the reviews I was on level 16 and now went back to 10 and I still have 700 reviews to go, but I try not to stress myself too much with it
I’ve taken plenty of breaks (obviously), but WK isn’t the only way to learn Japanese. Eventually I started trying to play games and read other media in Japanese and I would look up words and learn that way. I’d come back to WK and I’d be “learning” kanji that I already knew, which made it a lot easier to progress. My advice to anyone is that if you’re feeling burned out, go pick up some sort of Japanese media that you have always had as your “goal” and just start powering through it. It will take a bit to get momentum, but eventually you’ll be flying through reading and learning/retaining new words left and right. WK will always be there to return to for filling in the gaps.
I was on level 16 and now went back to 10 and I still have 700 reviews to go, but I try not to stress myself too much with it 