Do you finish all of your vocabulary before starting Radicals/Kanji?

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@dapensadler
even though you’re level 11 already and so have clearly been at this a while

welcome gif - crabigator

Take the time to check out the FAQ and GUIDE if you haven’t already.

There’s also a lot of good stuff on the forum to help you, like:

The Ultimate Guide for WK
The Ultimate Additional Japanese Resources List!
The New And Improved List Of API and Third Party Apps

I hope your Japanese learning journey continues to go well and that you enjoy your time with us!

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I saw some people having very precise timings for reviews. They are working on some strict schedules and somehow manage to get through very fast with those 6.5 days per level or even faster.

My approach is purely barbaric as I stated above. I don’t have schedules. But pattern is that I am obliged to destroy all of the morning reviews before work (60-120 items on average). Then during workday I do reviews here and there, as many of them as I can. When I come back home I am obliged to clear all of the leftover reviews. Then during evening I come back occasionally to smash those small piles so I can go to sleep safely.

But no matter how you do it, everything is limited by the time period you can or want to dedicate per day on reviews. Reviews are pretty much limitless, but lessons shouldn’t exceed 30-40 items mark under any circumstances because your brain may just reject that huge amount of new information. And never rush lessons. Do thorough research on the item and create own mnemonics if default is useless and doesn’t ring a bell.

And as for me, I spend 8 days per level on average.

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Just wanted to point out that this isn’t possible, in case anyone thinks that it is and is disappointed when they can’t go super fast.

Given how the SRS (Spaced Repetition System) works, there is a maximum possible speed at which it’s possible to progress on WaniKani; 6 days 20hours per level.

That maximum speed is because you can only progress to the next level when you’ve gotten the majority of kanji for the current level to Guru. When you level up, you get just over half of the kanji for that level unlocked and you must get these up to Guru before you unlock the rest for that level.

So if you look at the maths this way:
Note that these intervals are reduced by around 50% for level 1 and 2, so they’ll go faster

Unlock Kanji = 0hrs
Apprentice 1 -> 2 = 4hrs later
Apprentice 2 -> 3 = 8hrs after that
Apprentice 3 -> 4 = 23hrs after that
Apprentice 4 -> Guru = 47hrs after that

So the total levelling time for first batch = 3 days 10 hours
You then unlock the next batch and must spend 3 days 10 hours again on those

I wasn’t trying to be precise. I just remembered some six point something number. But whatever I guess.

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No, I get that - just making sure that no new users lurking and reading this stuff who haven’t read about the SRS system, don’t start thinking that it’s possible (or wise even if it was) to go faster than is possible.

Wasn’t intended as any kind of slight you you :slight_smile:

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…have I been abusing scripts? I had over 100 lessons so I’m trying to clear all vocab I have and from that point forward trying not to let lessons get that high.

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its actually 23 and 47 for app3 and app4
all levels after 1 day have a -1 hour attached in order to disperse the reviews, so you dont get them all at once, like if you have a schedule of doing your reviews at 10PM you’ll start getting them reviews at 9 too already

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Cheers for that, I always forget to change that bit - WK obfuscate it somewhat on the knowledgeable by putting ‘1 day’ and ‘2 days’

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to be exact they put ~1 day
thus indicating that its about 1 day but not exactly

That may have been the case at one point, not so at the moment:

image

You’re talking forum, I’m talking website.

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hmm ic, but i am sure its still 23 and 47hours

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No, you’re definitely right, it’s been confirmed by the team iirc :slight_smile:

It makes sense too, because the maximum quoted speed is always 6d 20hr, whereas it would be 7d if we added four extra hours on.

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It was due to how something or other worked, and not intentional.
They considered “fixing it” to be exactly 24 hours and 48 hours, people just NO! Leave it! :rofl:

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100 isn’t bad, if you stop to do them there.
I would say avoid getting any vocabs from earlier levels left behind.
You can do radicles and kanji from the new level without doing the vocab from last level first, as some are unlocked at level up. But any -2 leves are script abuse and will hurt your retention of those kanji.
Basically aim for Zero lessons at least once per level. If you do, the order doesn’t hurt.

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Thanks! That was essentially my plan, so it’s good to hear it from you as well.

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Before I reset I was doing kanji & radicals first, and eventually things started to get a bit painful. Nowadays I always do vocab first, even if that means I won’t get to the kanji and radicals for another 12 hours or so. The rationale? If I’m too busy to clear all of the lessons in one go, or if there are too many, I’d rather spend the time reinforcing kanji I’ve already learned through vocab rather than learning new ones and risk weak retention of the previously learned ones. Waiting 12 - 24 hours to get to your kanji / vocab doesn’t really affect your leveling speed that much, and it can really make things more enjoyable in the long run. If you find things are becoming brutal in later levels, this is a strategy you could try.

Usually I plow through all of the vocabulary lessons before leveling up. But, if I have leftovers from the previous level, I will learn the new radicals first as there are max. 8 of them and often are fairly easy. (I hate seeing an empty screen for the new level.) Then, I return to learn the rest of the previous levels vocabulary, before continuing with the current level.
If I don’t learn all of the the vocabulary, then what is the point of reaching new, ever more difficult levels? (I am also that guy that can’t stand if there are unread messages or emails. It bothers me when there are phone icons that tell me there is something left for me to read.) That is my method.

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Speaking of precise - those should both be the same… :wink:

To topic, sometimes, but I’ll do new radicals out of order.

Yes, I forgot to edit that, oops.

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