At the pace I’m going now, I’m looking at about three years and some of study on Wanikani. So I’m in no rush, but I ain’t no slouch either.
However at the same time, beyond Level 10 we should be trying to get grammar in and as much listening, reading and speaking practice as we can.
I’m having lots of fun listening to japanese Youtubers and Vtubers during my commute. That’s the best part about learning Japanese honestly… there is just so much fun content to enjoy.
And I think having fun while learning Japanese is super important.
This sounds like me. Every day I clear my reviews and then do five new lessons (that is, one lesson of five items). I’m doing other kinds of study as well (Duolingo, weekly classes, reading practice when I have time, etc.) I’ve been at this since December and am still on level 5; I may never get to level 60. That’s ok! When I studied to be an English teacher, we were given the rule of thumb that learning around 10 new vocabulary words a day was the maximum we should aim for. I feel that this pace is just right for me, although I may pick it up slightly when summer vacation comes. Reinforcing what I already know and making it stick means going slowly. And at this pace, I still get excited about completing my reviews and lessons every single morning.
I only just started but lvl 2 took me 6 days, lvl 3 8 days, not sure if later levels will take much more time? I really enjoy learning the Kanji, the mnemonics help so much in remembering them. I use the Flaming Durtles app and I do the reviews as soon as I get a notification.
Maybe I will get burned out later on when more complicated Kanji and vocab comes, I read too many posts about that… if I feel that starts to come I’ll slow down the tempo.
I also use KaniWani btw, I set that to Guru so it only shows the vocab from Guru and onwards. I think it really helps to ram the vocab even more in your brain that way.
OT, my profile picture says I’m lvl 3 but I’m already at 4 for a couple of days, does the profile update only once a week or something?
but now in hell levels it takes a long time to level up, just doing vocab reviews from lvl 37 it took me 28 days! Only yesterday radicals and kanji from lvl 38 finally appeared
at this rate it will be more 2 years I guess.
At least now I am watching anime with jap subtitles (1 episode per day so far) so I dont get frustrated anymore, I am putting into practice and reminding words I didnt see for quite some time.
besides, I have bunpro (almost 5 months into it) and doing 2 grammar points per day in N3.
Well I joined in 2013 and have a lifetime membership. I got to about level 9 I think and then had a baby and a loooong break. I just reset to level 5 and feeling quite optimistic this time round!
Out of curiosity, what is everyone’s strategy in approaching Wanikani? I feel as though I see a lot of people on the forum talking about how slow or fast they are, but this is puzzling to me considering that the site has limits on how much kanji you can learn and review per day. Is it simply that people do not finish their review queue everyday, or is there more to it than that?
Currently I do Wanikani every day of the week. When I log in I work through everything due in my review queue and then do ~10 new kanji if I have any in my learning queue. Is this considered a slow or fast pace by the forum’s standards?
It’s a meme. Although it’s not supposed to represent that everyone in the large circle quits at level 7. Just that that’s about the first opportunity for people to realize that things are harder than they may seem at first and so it is a logical place to drop if you are going to drop.
There are a few factors. WK does impose limits, but most people complete lessons slower than WK gates their progress in the first place. Others use scripts to speed up and partially work around WK’s built-in limiters (eg. using a lesson reorder script to prioritize radicals and kanji).
Reviews are a whole other side of the coin as well. Some of us use a combination of phone apps and the website to tackle reviews just about every hour as they come up, and others may only do reviews once a day.
Then there’s the issue of accuracy. I personally find that going faster increases my accuracy, since I stay closer to the exact SRS intervals and have much more exposure to similar kanji/vocab. Accuracy plays a huge role in your overall speed. Check this thread to see how your total number of reviews adjusts based on accuracy: Monte Carlo Simulation: Total number of reviews to burn everything
The fastest you can possibly go is one level every 7 days (or 3.5 days for a handful of levels later on). If I had to venture a guess, I’d say most people level every 2-4 weeks.
yeah, I’ve also slowed down dramatically since first starting, but that doesn’t bother me at all. I use WaniKani as a slow and steady vocabulary acquisition method alongside a bunch of anime/music, hellotalk, and other outisde japanese study/interraction. But since my goal is to actually become comfortable listening/communicating in Japanese rather than just completing JLPT N1 or reaching level 60 this slow-but-certain pace means I’m establishing strong foundations to build upon rather than blitzing ahead faster than I can handle. almost 9 months in now and I’m on level 10 and really need to get the rest of the level 10 kanji out of lessons and into review rotation >_> (my apprentice stack has been < 70 for like 2 weeks), but I’ve been rewatching some of my favorite anime this last week without subs on and understanding a surprising amount compared to before so I know I’m making good progress.
Simply not possible. I tried once but my browser said, “I can’t do that Dave”
But seriously, my badge always reflects the level I’ve completed not the level I’m currently chipping away it. At some point in the early teens it stops mattering at all.
The site limits how many lessons are unlocked at a time. There’s no limit on reviews.
Oh yes, what I meant to express was that there is only so much due per day/hour on the review queue!
And after you start getting those Enlightened and Burn reviews from months ago, it piles up real quick.
How many reviews do you typically have in your queue at higher levels? I’m at the tail-end of Level 5 right now and I typically have 70-90 reviews waiting in my queue for me when I get up around 8am everyday.
Mornings where I have 90 reviews waiting are not happy mornings. I like to wake up to around 40 reviews and it’s typically between 40 and 60 at 8am with anywhere from 80 to 120 reviews per day. To accomplish this I try to keep my Apprentice items below 70 which means an average of 5 lessons a day.
The main limiting factor that I’ve found was time.