Doing lessons every day or keeping a steady supply in apprentice

Heyo,
Im interested in your opinions since i see quiet often people say to do like 10 or 20 lessons every day while others swear by keeping not more than 100 items in apprentice. Now i have 115 in apprentice and still have 29 lessons left i could do, im not quiet sure tho since for example this morning i had 115 reviews and i tend to always end my morning, noon and evening with 0 reviews left. So whats your opinion should i go for the other 29 lessons or just keep it at that level till i have “new slots open” in apprentice, whats better in your opinions ?

2 Likes

Maybe do 5 or 10 more and see how the workload feels to you. It all just depends on your preference and how much you feel you can handle. For example i dont always do 20 lessons a day because I found it personally overwhelming, but I also dont keep my apprentice items at 100 either

It may seem easy in the earlier stages if you already know many of the beginning kanji, radicals, or vocabulary but as @IgorTheGreat mentioned, it is best to add more and see how you feel on the workload. Of course, they will always be there for you, so there really is no rush, but if you have any prior knowledge it may seem simple to accelerate the lessons in the beginning, just don’t feel like you need to continue that same pace just to level quickly (this causes the low level burnout and pile up of reviews).

Take this with a grain of salt, I’ve been here for hundreds of years and never pushed vacation mode and I’m still level 16 lol… I’m getting better at studying recently though :slight_smile:

4 Likes

If you do set a number of lessons a day and have a consistent review accuracy (doesn’t have to be high) then the number of your apprentice items will hover around the same number all the time. I do 20 lessons every day and have about 90-120 items in apprentice.

I don’t worry about the exact number, just keep doing the same number of lessons every day (unless I run out :sweat_smile:).

4 Likes

It’s actually both together that are recommended.

I would say to wait until you have slots open in apprentice. It’s a good idea to get into the habit of doing it this way now.

The advice above is born out of necessity and is a way to keep daily lesson load manageable once longer interval SRS items start coming around.

That pace should result in about 150 or so reviews per day on average.

3 Likes

I tend to do all vocabulary items when they show up in a big batch because they’re more familiar than kanji.

With kanji I do them 5-10 a day depending on how I want my workload to increase.

With radicals I do them straight away before anything else because I don’t really use WK radicals or mnemonics.

2 Likes

Like @alo says, it’s not either or, but both together that’s usually implied by that advise.

Personally, I don’t think 29 lessons is all that much. I would probably just do them and get them done, if you have the energy to do so. That will obviously expand your apprentice count, but not by all that much and it’s quickly goes down as soon as you get stuff to guru.

It’s really up to you to decide how fast you wanna go.

3 Likes

It’s also worth noting with this that 29 lessons translates into a smaller batch of reviews unless you do reviews at set times religiously.

That makes reviews more manageable for me if i can periodically plough through a few lessons at random points throughout the day.

For me, a large lesson queue is more stressful than a large review queue.

1 Like

Me too. I don’t want stuff lying in wait for me. And like you say, if you spread out when you do the lessons throughout the day, then 29 new items isn’t all that much. It really depends on how you’re doing reviews. Smaller batches is the way to go, I feel.

1 Like

Do them all xD

1 Like

I have now about 18 new lessons, it’s vocab so it’s easy :confused:
But I won’t do it till tomorrow because I have my 1 day gap with apprentice->guru kanji, so it would be just boring day if I don’t have any lessons.

You can see that it’s almost not reviews tomorrow because of damn gap :sweat:

So the only advice is to keep pace you like.

I don’t mind having lots of apprentice items. The lessons on the other hand, I need a cap.

0-5 lessons if I’m busy or have reviews
10 lessons is the sweet spot for me.
20 reviews if I really feel like studying or finishing a level.
20+ lessons my brain shuts down
All lessons available if I’m just feeling it and want to wreck my entire study schedule for fun.

2 Likes

20 lessons a day/100 apprentice items are approximately the same thing.

a lesson comes back for 4 reviews in the first 4 days before going guru (technically 3 1/2, but i’m assuming you aren’t speedrunning). so if you do 20 lessons a day, that’s 80 apprentice items, add some more for failed reviews, and it’s about 100 apprentice items.

the question is where you want to regulate your speed: i find the lessons relatively difficult, but don’t mind having lots of reviews at times, so i regulate the number of lessons i do. others might find the lessons relatively easy, but not like having lots of reviews, they might find it better to regulate how many apprentice items they have.

i actually vary the amount of lessons i do a day, radicals are super easy, vocab easy, kanji hard (at least for me), so i might do 30 vocab, but only 15 kanji. still i regulate my speed through lessons. with that i’m going at a reasonably fast 8-9 days per level.

I always do all my lessons right away but I’m on level 3 so…

1 Like

As other have mentioned the advice is to do both together.

The purpose of such advices is to manage the review workload. Most reviews are for apprentice items. If you keep the apprentice count under control you effectively control the size of your review queue. Also doing lessons generate new reviews. If you limit the rate at which you do lesson you keep reviews under control. But different people can handle different workloads. These advices are for the average person. You still need to figure out which workload you can handle and adapt the numbers accordingly.

Some people can take the whole lesson queue as soon as they are available and deal with the huge review workload. For most people this procedure leads to burn out. You need to figure what kind of workload you can handle and set a target apprentice count and lesson workload that works for you.

Why do you ask? Do you have problems managing the review workload with your current routine? This should be the guiding factor in your decision. If your current habit leads to reviews workload you can handle don’t change it. If you have problems with the workload reduce the pace at which you do lessons. If you feel you can go faster do all the lessons.

It’s better to increase your load, then pull back when you have too many items to review, than to not have enough and wonder if you should increase. Find the pace that works for you.

1 Like

Until now, I just do all lessons i can until I reach 150 in practice then I stop lessons until the number goes down
I also put a limit in guru to 500, but I never reached it. The most Guru i had so far was like 450

I’m still only level 11 so I don’t know if it’s going to be right for me in the future

even the speedrunners don’t do all the lessons as soon as they are available. they use a userscript to reorder lessons so that the radicals and kanji come first. then distribute the vocab over the other days. doing all the lessons at once would give you piles of 60 or 70 (probably even more) lessons to do at once, that’d be quite counterproductive

You clearly haven’t talked to @ekg about her learning routine. She systematically does all the lessons when they are available and deal with the large review workload without problems.

2 Likes

Aye but this is the part that trips people up. @ekg was ok with the workload but it can be a surprise if you don’t have much idea of how much there actually is, especially in the first 20 levels or so.

1 Like