Greetings! I’m usually a slowpoke when it comes to progressing in Wanikani. I’ve been here for around 10 months and I’m only level 12. So, a question for you amazing people that go 1 level/week.
How do you do it? What scripts do you use? What kind of methods do you use to make your brain remember all the information?
Also, level 60’s, now that you’re not learning any more material, how is the material holding up? Do you have trouble remembering it, or does it stick?
By trying my best!
The ones related to my speed are the reorder script and ignore script. Reorder makes sure I do radicals and kanji first and ignore makes sure that I dont miss items I mistyped. Mistyping a radical can mean the difference of a day or so, so its pretty nice to have. Also dashboard so I can see when I have stuff. Also lightning mode.
I just use the mnemonic. I repeat it in my head, look at the kanji/word, and repeat it again while looking at the parts of the word/kanji that pertain to the mnemonic. During the lesson reviews I make sure to slow down and repeat the mnemonic in my head again as I come across the item. I make sure to do the 4 and 8 hour reviews around as soon as they come up. Strong foundation for learning the item usually results in a better long run for me.
After that I just review it and have about a 96% retention rate from there on. Don’t ever look at the item again unless its a leech.
I use WK Override (I try to only use it when I make a legit mistake), WK Reorder Ultimate 2, WK SRS Level Progress, WK Ultimate Timeline, and WK Wrap-up Button Enhancement. I use reorder to make sure I get radicals → kanji → vocab in that order for my lessons so I can progress faster. Then I use the timeline to make sure I can do my reviews needed for level up apprentice radicals/kanji shortly after they’re due. I don’t use any special trick to make sure I get things right, I try to pay attention to the mnemonics and let the SRS take care of the rest.
I’ve been doing one level per week since I came back to WK, so I feel I fit the description.
I don’t think the following will be very useful information, though, but
By knowing already all the material I have seen so far. Meaning is a bit annoying sometimes as I may type in a synonym (or what I think is a synonym but isn’t an actual English word). Also radicals with weird names trip me up once in a while.
Just one for the dashboard, so that I know how many items are at different stages of apprentice and guru
Ten years of Japanese study.
10年？！ 凄いだよ！！
去年の2月から日本語を勉強し始めました。遅く進行していますから文法の勉強かたわら単語も勉強していますと思います。。
I regularly got up in the middle of the night to do reviews or lessons.
Just an FYI, it’s ungrammatical to have だ after an い adjective.
そんなことないよ。
凄いより恥ずかしいと思う。
別の話なんだけど、「かたわら」の使い方は「Nのかたわら、」だと思う。それで、硬い表現だし、口語であまり使わないね。(意味が分かるから、別に大丈夫だと思うけど…)
As to how I got to 60, I always had a wanikani tab open, even at work. I would easily clear 200 reviews most days. Whenever it got higher than that I would stop learning new items until my queue went back down.
Addons. Ultimate timeline, reorder, are the big ones. I also have the unofficial app on my phone when Im away from my keyboard.
Nowadays at 60 i have maybe 15 reviews a day and life is nice. Occasionally I forget a reading but I remember a different reading to help me look it up (forget kunyomi but use onyomi to look it up, or reverse)
Remembering for me comes from the fact I live in Japan and I’m constantly reinforcing my kanji and vocabulary by reading.
I‘m doing it like Vanilla already described it, with the exception that I don’t use the reorder script just because I’m mostly using my phone for WaniKani (always on the go -.-) and the Keitai WaniKani does not support it.
At first I didn’t use the override script and I still don’t like to use it, but typos on the phone are so common that I messed up my reviews just by having clumsy fingers…
So I only correct those times where I type ち instead of り and so on.
Sometimes a correct the English input as well when my answer had the same meaning but I didn’t add it to the synonyms.
do radicals and kanji first. doing reviews on time is critical. if you do your lessons at the same time every day, and do all reviews 4 hours, then 8 hours later, you can get 7 day level ups without waking up at odd hours.
also, other than doing radicals right away, kanji lessons can be spread over a few days, as long as you finish them before you guru the radicals, and you wont affect your level up time. spread out your vocab lessons so the reviews are also spread out
Oh, if you’ve an Android phone, you can use Firefox to install scripts on the go. You should be mindful about how many you install though as it can lag a bit, but for the absolute must scripts, it gets the job done!
Thanks for the Tipp, but not on Android here haha
But as of right now, I don’t have a need for the reorder script because I have an average of 6 days and 21 hours 
Getting the mnemonics in your head is the most I’m portant part and helps a los, so review them often!
To expand on this, I found doing about 20 vocabulary lessons a day worked well for most levels.
I manage this without scripts. It gets a little intense sometimes, but the process is essentially:
Doing the above, you’ll generally keep at about 7.5 to 8.5 days a level.
The waiting periods serve a couple of purposes for me. First, it lets me get some of the newer vocabulary words close to (or to) Guru level. Second, as long as I do not skip review days, it helps space out new vocabulary words. I will say that once you get the last few kanji to Guru and move to the next level, many times, you’ll end up with a large number of vocabulary to learn. You can adjust your settings to get around this, but I usually try to power through it even though it causes a review spike for day or two.
I would say the biggest thing that helps me that nobody’s mentioned yet is kaniwani. It really improves how much time it takes until the vocab sticks, which in turn frees up my attention for kanji.
Apart from that I use:
No ignore script as I find deciding whether or not to use ignore on kaniwani (which has it built-in) is already too much guilt/mental burden. Just take an extra second to check the time-sensitive review answers before pressing enter (and there’s room to mess up up to 3 times anyway).
Speaking of the time-sensitive kanji, my final trick is to do an extra review of those like 30 minutes after taking their lessons; just going on the lesson summary page and quizzing myself once really helps to nail the 4 hour review later.
How did I do it?
Like probably many others have already said. I had a review schedule and did them as soon as they were up. I spent more time on the front end (lesson time) making sure that I knew the material so that I could have a higher accuracy rate. In other words, I made completing my levels a priority and being consistent about doing them.
What scripts did I use?
Reorder script, override script, ultimate timeline, jitai, lesson synonyms, and study quiz edition.
What methods for memorization?
Obviously association from mnemonics and regular contact with Japanese text. Specifically in situations when I learned new words (outside of WK), I made a habit of recording them so I could see how those words were written.
How is it holding? Do I I have trouble?
Since I’m maintaining regular contact with Japanese, my ability to retain has been amazing. There are times when I forget how to read certain words or solitary kanji, but that is usually due to not having enough regular exposure to it in my daily life. In such cases, I look up those words and review the reading/meaning of those items in question.
Do you have a Userscript for that? Or how do you incorporate this in your lessons?
I think it’s kind of nuts to want to go from 1 level a month to 1 a week. If you don’t have the willpower to dedicate all of your free time to japanese(or at least 90+ minutes a day) just do what you can. Remember that going quickly also means a hell of a lot of reviews a day, especially if you don’t have an extremely high retention rate.