My background is that I do agree that language learning is(t the easiest for me, but I actually live in Kanji and get immersion along side doing my wani kani reviews every day. My learning zone average is about 85% which they recommend to be at. I do all my lessons as I get them other than when a new level dumps 100 things on you.
I feel like either im really bad and slow or their 2000 kanji in 1.5 years is unattainable unless every moment of your day is doing extra study tests.
I do my reviews every day at 9am, I keep up with them as best as I can throughout the day, and then I do more in the evening before bed.
so the 2000 kanji in 500 days requires a very specific schedule. Basically you need to do a new level every ~7days, which is possible, but very difficult (and not necessarily recommended).
You can level up when 90% (I believe) of a levels Kanji are Guru. To unlock all Kanji, you need to get all Radicals to Guru before that.
So if you want to be very fast, you need to instantly do your radical lessons (and review them the moment they come available without mistakes). Then you need to do the kanji lessons in a similar way (in particular the ones that come available after guruing the radicals).
This obviously works only if you have very high accuracy and time your reviews in a precise way.
However, honestly I would not recommend that. It builds a massive review stack that you have to push through everyday and you spend a lot of time on this, instead of actually engaging with the language.
20 levels within a year is actually absolutely ok and not even a particularly slow pace I believe. So don’t feel pressured by “being slow”, but rather take the time you require.
I would recommend you to actually see if you want to do some changes to your routine. Often it is easier to do a fixed number of lessons a day (e.g. 10), instead of doing everything the moment it becomes available. This way your review count can become more stable. This might also help increase your accuracy a bit. The higher it is, the less reviews come in, which makes the load easier to manage.
However, there is also nothing wrong with your routine, if you like it that way and it does not overwhelm you, just keep going.
You are correct. This time frame is a wild marketing claim that only a few people achieve each year. More kanji have recently been added across rhe levels making it even more of a stretch goal. If you intend to stick with the program, liferime subbing will save you money and stress down the road. If you must finish in a year, consider other programs or plan to dedicate every waking hour to being perfect in this one.
to be honest it’s a positive development that WK marketing is slightly emphasising 1.5 years rather than 1 year. but yeah, aside from the fast outliers and the long tail of people taking ages or dnfs, my feeling from the forum is ambitious people who are able to be consistent and have the least amount of disruptive life events in that period seem to take 2-5 years. Some may well reach their language goal early and stop WK at level 30-45ish. Try to turn that into sexy marketing
Or put another way -
learning 2000 kanji in one year is possible but massively ambitious and really only makes sense for someone who already has prior Japanese knowledge. I’m sure there are exceptions and of course people do this, but I haven’t read that many people who have been really satisfied with it, or seen that it is particularly possible for someone with other commitments in their lives. yes possible, but achieving it plus enough language skill to use it? This is a rare event.
learning 2000 kanji in 2-5 years alongside enough grammar and other skills to be able to actually use those kanji is ambitious. Also very possible - you do see this from committed learners who will be consistent day in and day out.
learning 2000 kanji and enough language to use them in 5-10 years will still give most people a good run for their money. This is probably most common - life happens, plans and goals change, these learners keep coming back and eventually reach the finish mark. I wager very few / none of them started Japanese thinking it would take that long though, so even if this is the most likely outcome, it is a complete non-starter for marketing.
a lot of people are still at it at the 10+ year mark or are on the 10+ year trajectory, because despite not knowing 2000 kanji, they are pretty happy with what they can do with the Japanese language. This is what keeps the book clubs here alive
The problem is this. The human brain likes neat beginnings and endings. So customers demand the ability to learn 2000 kanji in a year, and because it is technically possible, the marketing follows suit. Fair enough! It’s on the customer to have a realistic goal, how should WK know who has 30 minutes per day vs 3 hours per day for kanji learning?
The reality is also challenging to communicate. You don’t need to know 2000 kanji to fulfill most realistic Japanese learning goals. And learning 2000 kanji doesn’t mean you’ve learned Japanese.
The community fills this role. I can tell you, if you’ve learned 350 kanji in half a year you’re doing great! You’re on the very ambitious learner track Keep going! Talk about your other goals with the language and you’ll get great advice here. There are threads for everything - speaking, listening, handwriting, and TONS of book clubs.
I’d agree that it’s ambitious, but I’d push back on the idea that it’s so ambitious or outrageous.
I started WK 291 days ago, so … August 15, 2025, and yesterday I reached level 40. I’ve guru’d 1372 kanji in that time, which is really only about 5 a day.
I have some life factors that make it easier for me to be very consistent with WK: I don’t have caregiving responsibilities, I have a somewhat flexible, self-directed work schedule (I’m a university professor), and I have taken 4 semesters of Japanese classes (from 2018-2019, while I was in grad school).
But maybe most significantly, I had the sort of … “hobby space” in my life to commit for about one year to learning kanji, and the passion to make following Kouichi’s advice to “do reviews on your birthday, on the weekend, and on vacation” easy. There definitely have been times in my life where I couldn’t imagine showing up for a hobby every day. I also don’t intend to review kanji every day forever—I’d rather be engaging with Japanese more directly.
If you’re looking to improve your accuracy, I’d suggest that rather than “extra study” randomly, use the “Recent Mistakes” and “Recent Lessons” features. I use “Recent Mistakes” when I notice I’ve missed the same card several times, and “Recent Lessons” when I do lessons late enough in the day that I don’t get to review those cards again the same day. Usually if I’m missing a card a bunch early on, I failed to really pay attention and internalize the mnemonics, so I try to take a little time to do that. If I miss it later, usually I’m right on vibes but wrong on nuance, so I try not to worry too much.
I agree with @Alonzo-xyz, it’s ambitious but they give you the tools if it’s your goal to learn 2000 kanji in 1.5 years, and people have finished even faster than that. Learning Japanese as an English speaker is a challenge itself and I think it makes sense to gear the marketing towards the most ambitious people/people with the most time on their hands. If ultimately you finish Wanikani in 5 or 10 years that’s fine, but if the advertisement said that it would take 5 or 10 years I think few would be interested. I’ve been going at a pace I’m happy with, 604 kanji since resetting 249 days ago, I had basically identical pace before resetting. If the advertisement said 5 years I wouldn’t have given it a chance at all.
This might not be true at all but, just from reading posts on the forums it seems to me that people have had the most success going through WK at a decently fast pace, like 1-3 years. I know there are some who have had success in the 4-5 year or even longer range, but it seems to me like that is the exception. I think that feeling like you are making good progress is what encourages you and gives you the motivation to keep going. I would only say that planning to finish Wanikani in anything shorter than 3 years is ambitious. 4 years is only 1.3 kanji a day, and 5 years is only 1 kanji a day. I think at that pace, you are far more likely to feel like you’re not making good progress and drop it entirely. No disrespect to those that have finished Wanikani in 5 years or even longer, I’m not even 1/3 of being done myself so I have nothing but respect for those that successfully completed WK fully. However, I doubt that anyone has ever finished Wanikani consistently learning 1 kanji a day. I think it is far more likely that long breaks were taken along the way, which again is totally fine. But as a matter of planning and expectations, I think it’s best to plan to go at a decently fast speed, plan to finish in less than 3 years, and if it takes longer there’s nothing wrong with that (as it has for me, since I reset previously), but I honestly wouldn’t recommend anything longer than that to be the plan up front. 350 kanji in 180 days is not bad at all, but if you’d like to go faster that’s up to you. I recommend consistent lesson, like 15 or so, and doing all reviews every day. But even if you changed nothing you’re still at a solid pace.
No shade to people who want to learn thousands of kanji in a year, but who is actually asking for that? People demand what they have been sold. If the marketing did not mention how long it would take, would there be so many people on the forum wondering if their pace is up to the “standard”?
I think as others have said already, there is more to learning Japanese than memorizing 2000 kanji (some of which are arguably low frequency). Getting stuck in the WK SRS loop will eliminate the time available to learn other aspects of the language.
Back in the day, “smart guys” would try to impress people by claiming to know how to calculate the value of pi out to lots of digits. In reality, they actually just memorized a series of numbers. Few could actually do the calculation. It was basically a parlor trick. IMHO, memorizing thousands of kanji falls into the same realm if not combined with techniques for how to actually use them.
How many people finish in a year to two or five and cannot not speak, read or understand spoken A1 level Japanese?
WK is about learning kanji, not about learning Japanese, and maybe not even about learning to read Japanese. But since there are quite a lot of Japanese learners whose listening comprehension and speaking skills are adequate, but who remain functionally illiterate, WK provides a clear pathway towards being able to recognise common kanji which in turn makes literacy a real possibilty. So for people whose other Japanese skills are okay who need literacy fast for say a job in Japan, being able to speedrun WK is a godsend, but for everyone else (ie people who still have to work on all their other Japanese skills), speedrunning is not necessary, and frankly kind of boring.
I’m not complaining or demanding to get to 2000 within the time frame. I think I am prefectly happy with where I am, expect level 9 is kicking my butt a bit with the kanji.
I just got logged out and say the over a year claim and then saw I was about 180 days studied. Which i was not close to following. Generally I like WaniKani but the claim didnt make feel a bit sad and disappointed. especially when Ive made maybe 5 feedback requests about broken or incorrect lessons, which they have fixed.
Well this is my pace, I started 91 days ago actually as the first 6 days were just me figuring out what wanikani is and how it can help me in learning japanese (okay there was some, a tiny-bitty bit of laziness…) Didn’t do a single lesson in the first 6 days (forgive me ke )
The community is the best part I think that Wanikani should actually advertise as the people here are literally so guuuud ! You can post about a small problem that they might have seen 1000’s of times before but they still reply to you sincerely instead of “Search the community, your problem is not new(baka!)”
And what your goal is also matters. If someone is learning japanese for job then he/she/they will study 3 hours a day to pass the JLPT’s and simultaneously practice speaking whereas a manga fan (don’t beat me okay ? just an example ) or an anime fan might just want to put in half an hour and give rest of thier time in immersing themselves in thier favourite manga or series.
Its different for different people and comparing to someone who reached lvl 60 in 400 days with no speaking or even N5/N4 level reading skils is useless in my pov, I can read pretty much most of the N5 material (okay maybe there might be a pinch of arrogance hidden somewhere in this sentence ) and even listen to songs with some sentences just clicking in my head. Its not the same, you do what you are comfortable with.
And may Ke bless your journey toward the durtle heaven
wkstats.com is your go to site if you are asking for the stats. (you might need the API key to sync your account)
I do 15 lessons a day (I did 20 lessons/day in level 2 and half lvl 3 ) and do my reviews in every 3 to 6 hour gap.
My N5 grammar was finished in 80 days so approximately 4 lessons per day of grammar (starting grammar is easy if you are reading manga on the side). Rest is kaniwani which is really not a necessity if your goal is to just read instead of speaking or writing.
26 day average but i think its wonky because i tired it once then actually started using it 3 months later. This is with a 80% accuracy for my entire time using WaniKani.
So your retention of vocab and kanji is not matching your lesson pace, try slowing down a bit as I think you brain is experiencing a bit of burnout…happens when we try our best but the results are not up to our standard…
how many lessons are you doing everyday ? the standard 15 or less/more ?
I’m about 400 days in and there’s been ups and downs. At one point i got greedy and did like 25 lessons a day. I think it’s definitely doable but it wasn’t fun for me. Besides after 35 or so you get more juice from reading than from grinding.
So maybe 2 years for me with lots of reading too. It’s a big difference from the old times. Importing vhs, finding the one japanese speaker in town if they even exist, language schools??, grindy textbooks??? Paper kanji dictionary?!!! 何？！
For a big chunk at the start I did textbooks the Japanese from zero 1-4. And they did help. I dont think I’m going to finish book 5. Now wk is the second priority to reading.
I don’t really agree with that, I learned kana and then speedrun WaniKani until level 40, finishing the last 20 levels at a slightly slower but still decently fast pace after that. If I was to forget all of my Japanese and start all over again I would only speedrun to level 30 and slow down after that, but I still got massive value from the first half of the course. I still studied some grammar on the side, but my main focus of my studies was WaniKani for about 10 months.
No, WaniKani doesn’t really teach you to read, but it does serve as a massive booster for reading competency if you invest the bare minimum effort in grammar and non-kanji vocab. On the other hand, in my experience, studying grammar and vocab without a decent kanji foundation is absolutely miserable. That’s the main reason I started WaniKani so early, I was struggling to deal with all those weird characters while drilling vocab or studying grammar.
It’s certainly not the only way to do it, and I can see how some people would prefer to put less focus on kanji than I did early on, but it worked really well for me.
One thing I would absolutely discourage, especially as a beginner in Japanese, is speedrunning all the way to level 60. It’s going to be miserable and you’ll probably have forgotten most of the kanji in the late levels by the time you need them since they’re overall a lot less common. Make no mistake: 90% of the value of WaniKani is in the first 30 levels. You hit massive diminishing returns as you progress deeper (this isn’t a WaniKani issue, it’s just how kanji distribution works in the real world).
This discussion is had over and over on the forum. It never makes any sense to me. My friend who sped-run twice through wanikani twice in succession and managed to somehow not be able to read or recognize almost any kanji got back from Japan recently where he studied at a Japanese language school and finally started learned to read kanji the Japanese way–writing them over and over, physical flash cards etc. He feels wanikani was a complete waste of time for him. I think this is a relatively common, but not a result you will run into on the wanikani forum. Try reddit if you want a more balanced view. People have different abilities. My friend needed to write a lot and use multiple different methods and to learn and retain the kanji. He is not alone. I live in an area where you almost can’t walk down the street without running into someone studying Japanese, many people have tried wanikani, most decide on other methods. I use it as an adjunct and it works for me because the gamification keeps me consistently doing something related to kanji, not because I think it is the most effective learning method.
Maybe the issue was trying to speed run? Twice through the whole system is like trying to memorize a dictionary front to back as fast as possible twice lmafo! It sounds goofy in English too. Did they read at all? Reading is usually where the kanji bind the strongest.
Little known fact. Reading is the next step after burning. If you made it to 60 without reading you failed wani kani. Yes, it’s possible to fail wani kani. The good news is that it’s recoverable and fixable. People will do wani kani twice instead of reading. People really will do anything than read.
True story. Theres a really tall vanta black durtle that appears at night to those who don’t read and it offers them a cup of 紅茶. Scary!! And it will bill you for the cup and it doesn’t take Amex! Scary!!! The tea is good though. (source: i made it up)
Keep going! Talk about your other goals with the language and you’ll get great advice here. There are threads for everything - speaking, listening, handwriting, and TONS of book clubs.
Didn’t do a single lesson in the first 6 days (forgive me ke 
)
) or an anime fan might just want to put in half an hour and give rest of thier time in immersing themselves in thier favourite manga or series.
) and even listen to songs with some sentences just clicking in my head. Its not the same, you do what you are comfortable with.
but i think its wonky because i tired it once then actually started using it 3 months later. This is with a 80% accuracy for my entire time using WaniKani.
(source: i made it up)