I was thinking of posting at lv31, but I turned 32 the same week as I got to lv32, so might as well!
I first started Wanikani on Jan 2021, then I kinda burnt out after studying for roughly 4.5 months.
Came back again on Jan 2023 with a reset to lv1, studying a lot more grammar along side kanji. However I spent too much time studying each day, and ironically a trip to Japan broke that habit and I couldn’t quite get back to study.
Both time in 2021 and 2023 I had WFH with flexible work hours, so I could manage my time as much as I wanted, which resulted in my inability to manage time well causing the burnt outs as I always felt like I should be learning more and that was too tiring.
As you can see, I took a little break at lv10 before coming back this time.
Jan 2025, another new year resolution, another attempt at learning Japanese.
This time though, I felt like I can stick to the schedule. I have a fixed work hours now and ironically while that reduced my free time, that helped with studying Japanese. I would use the down time at work instead of doomscrolling social media to study instead. I felt good, using my time productively, and then I limit myself after work to mostly relax and less on study. I used to feel like I have to do reviews as soon as they pop up, but not anymore. Overall this reduces mental stress.
Work life balance works for study for something you enjoy too I guess? This time I can feel myself going the entire way to lv60, along with studying grammar.
There’s quite a bit of down time at work haha. I keep an eye on the level up item, but I do study all vocabs in a level as well. Trying to just do non-level up item during work hours is building me lots of discipline and lower self expectation of doing all reviews asap.
I used to stay up 1 hr later at night to do level up item reviews, but not anymore, I just let it be delayed. Overall this works out so much better. And as you said, I can do this at almost full speed.
I figured 2000 kanji in a year is already a lot. Doesn’t really matter if I delay a bit overall, much more important to keep going every day and build habit.
I did a very similar thing pace-wise. I also think that at level 30 you have gotten most of the value of Wanikani already anyway. At this point you should have a kanji foundation that’s more than sufficient to engage with simple Japanese. At this point your time is probably better spent studying grammar or just reading over just grinding kanji.
That’s my current plan actually. I do feel my low grammar skill is not enough to match with my kanji knowledge. So I’m studing grammar more atm, along with trying out some games in Japanese. I go into it with a mindset that I wont understand most of it, but that’s fine. Its for me to practice.
I have a friend who knows a lot more grammar and common daily phrases than me, but I know more kanji than him. So we play together and kinda do some knowledge fusion, its entertaining lol.
Grammar wise I’m at beginning of N4. Will try to shift focus to more grammar now. I do try to read manga in Japanese here and there, but I’m still lacking.
I powered through Final Fantasy VIII in Japanese around your level. It was super rough and I had to check the English translation all the time because I was often completely lost, but I did learn a lot doing it!
I just started trying out RuneFactory: GoA with my friend. Its single player, but we kinda play along and help each other on the language. I tend to let most NPC conversation go through, I understand the vibe and overall meaning of the conversation, but no details. I spend time trying to translate the tutorial pop up tho, I feel that one is somewhat important haha.
My goal is to finish learning N4 by end of this year. Should be doable without too much burden.
Yeah I did something similar, I would try hard to parse the main story conversations but all the random NPC dialogues I would vibe-out most of the time. I found it really cool for that actually, you have all these random, non-consequential bits of everyday conversation you can sample at your leisure while exploring the world.
I used to try hard to understand all the time, but that’s not healthy. So I changed my mindset and see it as “Look how much I’m able to understand now, up from precisely 0%!”, then I become happier and study are less tiring. Right mindset is really important, in hindsight its simple, but I really was pressuring myself unnecessarily.
