Today is my first day on wanikani, and it’s super fun, but how do I know when I can do new lessons? I appreciate help
5 Likes
There are a bunch of parameters to consider but I think that now WaniKani limits lessons to 15/day by default. You can override this and do more if you want (and if you’re motivated early on, I think it’s not unreasonable to get more lessons to speed up the start).
Eventually the next lessons will be gated by the radical progression and the level up system.
If you want to know all the details have a look at:
6 Likes
It is not a “limit”, in so far as “limit” implies a cap or restriction that is enforced. It is just a recommendation for the number of lessons to do each day. You can even change it in the settings. At any time, you are free to do as few or as many as you would like to do at that time, ranging from 0 to X, where X is the amount that are available. Where X could be anything from 0 to “a lot”, depending on your current overall progress and previous activity. For example, right now I have 95 lessons (items which have been unlocked that I have not yet done the lesson for) ready to do. I could do 1 of them or 12 of them or 42 or all 95, Whatever I feel like. How many will I do/should I do? However many works out best for me in terms of my ability to absorb new material/my schedule/my preferences/desired balance in terms of overall load. How did I determine what that is? Experimentation. If things were progressing at a load less than I wanted, I increased the number I do. If things were progressing a load more than I wanted, I decreased the number. In reality, for me it is probably driven more by my available time and my mood. Sometimes I do not have time, mental energy, nor desire to do lessons today. Sometimes I feel like doing 20 or 30. A lot users (given that those present and active here on the forums is a very small percentage of the total user base but enough to offer some amount of statistical significance) seem to like doing anywhere from 5 to 15 per day.
In terms of understanding the process behind how the system works in terms of when you are given new material, have you read the user manual?
4 Likes
By the way @mods, I think this page should be updated to mention the new lesson limits:
As it is it’s a bit misleading with the new limits in place by default.
5 Likes
It’s your first day. Welcome! You are keen and eager. All of the level one radicals are open to you (that’s up to about 25 lessons). The previous posters have told you how to forge ahead. (Did anyone mention the Advanced button on the lessons section on the dashboard? If not check it out to see what lessons you could do.)
Here’s my take on why you might want to limit yourself a bit, and certainly after the next few days.
1/ WaniKani is a spaced repetition system (SRS). That means stuff will keep coming back to you for review at decreasing frequency until it’s “burned”. You do a lesson followed by an immediate review. You then need a minimum of at least 8 more reviews before the item is burned at SRS level 9. If you get one right you go forward by one position. If you get one wrong you go back one or two positions, which adds two or three extra reviews. So you might have 12 or 14 reviews for a particular word, or more. Most of these reviews come in the future - on the same days you will be doing other new lessons. So the number of daily reviews slowly increases over the first six months, piling on multiple historical lessons, until the first day items are finally burned. If you go over the top this week, your future self won’t thank you. You may have tons of time this weekend, but what about in three months time, or six months?
2/ You are limited to the lessons you can select from at any time depending on what you have already unlocked. Words are based on kanji, and kanji on radicals. You have to reach guru level (SRS level 5) for the radicals to unlock lessons on the kanji based on them. And you have to reach guru on the kanji to unlock lessons for the vocabulary based on them. If you do all the lessons on the radicals, you will also need to review in 2 hours, then again in another 4 then again in another 8 and finally you’ll have to wait a full day before you guru the radicals and open up all the kanji and repeat. That’s one and a half days minimum for the radicals them the same for the kanji. Guru 90% of the kanji in a level to unlock the next one. So at that point you will be able to do level one vocabulary AND you will have unlocked level 2 to let you do new radicals and perhaps some kanji too. (It’s worth noting spacing doubles after the first two levels.)
3/ WaniKani is not your complete Japanese solution, and you’ll need to spend time using other programs. If you have other things on the go don’t neglect them.
One of the best ways to smooth out the effort that Wanikani will throw at you is to select a number of lessons per day and stick to it. Especially after the first two levels.
- 5 lessons a day reviewing daily is a relatively slow pace, although there are people who are happy enough doing even fewer. You’ll do all the lessons in 5 years (needing another 6 months to burn the last ones).
- 10 lessons a day, reviewing twice a day is a moderate pace. You complete in 2.5 years if you don’t take breaks.
- 15 lessons a day. Review at least twice a day. This is the default number. It’s a lot if you are doing this in your spare time and have a job or something else, but it’s doable. Complete in about 21 months.
- 25 lessons a day, reviewing at least three times a day, at specific intervals for those taking it at the limit. This is pretty much maximum throttle, for the full or near-full timers only, in my opinion. You complete in around one year, but you might want to take breaks to avoid burn out.
There is no point in going past 25 or 26 lessons a day. Taking every lesson you can immediately you can will cause you to have to wait for lessons to become available on some days, and you will get review-size bunching.
So if you want to get level one radicals and kanji done in 3 days and start in on both level 1 vocabulary and level 2 radicals on day 4, you can do that, but keep doing that and you’ll end up giving your future self more uneven days.
7 Likes
First of all, welcome! Jon’s post which is directly above mine if I type this relatively quickly is great advice and information. 
I would say that these early days where you’ll have relatively fewer lessons and reviews are a great time to take stock of where you are in the language, what your goals are, and what resources you are using. WaniKani, for example, I think is outstanding for learning kanji via radicals, and then vocabulary from the kanji. It has pretty consistent mnemonics, which don’t always work for me, but it’s very good at what it does.
With that said, unless your goal is to just read (and if it is, that’s great too!), there may be some things you’ll need to do outside WaniKani. You may notice there’s a study log section inside the forums as well, where you can review other learners’ journey - some who are well in advance of us, and some who have also recently started. I’m a little over 2 1/2 months in now, so obviously I know everything.
Fortunately, while the site is a great vocabulary resource, this community is a far better learning resource, just because everyone is so darned helpful. If there’s anything you’re looking for assistance with, odds are someone has already dealt with that and can give good advice. The big thing is you’re now on your way and if you keep going, you will get there in your own time!
6 Likes
I don’t see us updating this page, as right now I can’t see how the information is affected by the daily review recommendations (which like mgrice said, they’re recommendations, not limits). Could you tell me what you find misleading in the text? Maybe there’s something I’m missing.
1 Like
Also, welcome to ScaryNook!
(And “Welcome to ScaryNook” sounds like a great kids horror series.)
So I’m not too familiar with the new daily lesson thing because at the point it appeared I was already using Smouldering Durtles for most of my wanikani-ing, but I was under the impression that by default you can only do 15 lessons per day unless you change the limit or manually pick lessons?
If so I think that newcomers may not understand this mechanic and think that they just have to wait for items to guru before you get new lessons, which in this case is not correct.
But again maybe I misunderstand how that bit works.
Thanks a lot, everybody! It’s just my first week here, and I already see that wanikani has a great community 
I can see a bit how this could be confusing, as far as how things are unlocked and how to see all lessons available. I don’t think the existence of the Lesson Picker necessarily changes the accuracy of that particular knowledge guide article, but maybe some mention of how the Lesson Picker works or where all your lessons live could be helpful. I’ll bring it up with the team!
3 Likes