I just wanted to know from you level 60 guys what you became able to do after getting the cake. How good are you able to speak/understand things? Have you studied from any other sources? Did you have any previous experience on japanese?
Edit1: actually one more question guys: have you kept the vocabulary after long periods of time or have you forgotten things? If you’ve lost it, how much aproximately?
WaniKani is primarily a kanji learning resource, and the vocab it does teach isn’t the most natural or commonly used, but mostly chosen for its relevance to the kanji for reinforcement. Without studying from a grammar resource and possibly a vocab resource, you won’t be able to do much only recognise kanji. Even sentence comprehension can have big gaps without knowledge of grammar.
Aside from that, speaking is a whole other topic and that requires active practice, which isn’t inherently a part of WK. WK is only one piece of what could/should be a balanced and varied jp diet study regime. But, I’m not that far ahead of you and currently neglecting grammar so I’m not the best person to give advice here 
Up to now I’ve used the Human Japanese textbooks for grammar for the most part. Vocab from that, Core 10K on Kitsun, and Memrise which can go rot in oblivion.
Thanks for the reply xD The question isn’t personal though, just out of curiosity on the lvl 60 guys. Thing is, my grammar level is already fine for I’ve studied on university, but I’ve always had a problem learning vocabulary and kanji, which is how I found Wanikani. Thus my doubt really is what people were able to accomplish after reaching level 60 cause I’m a bit anxious and would like having a glimpse on what will I be able to do once I get there
It has granted me the ability to breakdown compound words like a small puzzle and reconstruct new words from the pieces. I knew the word toxicologist in English and read 毒物学者 and broke it down as poison-thing-study-person “oh must be a toxicologist!” This happens quite frequently. Reading Kanji is a very important step in reaching literary fluency (is that a thing?). Sometimes you’ll find that having something in kanji will allow you to understand something you otherwise wouldn’t since it is basically a pictograph. That’s why my reading ability is so much better than my listening…
Btw I am level 60 NG+1
On its own, WK won’t do very much to help you speak/hear Japanese. I visited Japan last year (around level 30 or 40?) and could barely comprehend spoken stuff, even though I could read a lot. At 58 I’m still awful at speaking, though I ramped up my listening practice and can do OK there.
How good one’s Japanese is at level 60 depends too much on too many things, so this is a hard question to answer in general, but, in my case…
I had no experience with Japanese when I started WK. I did it alongside grammar studies (I used the Genki textbooks, then Tobira) and started reading native material at around level 20. I was still fresh out of Genki at that time.
I could read reasonably well when I got to 60, but I still had to stop from time to time to check the dictionary or look up grammar online. Of course WaniKani played a big role on helping me get there, but if I hadn’t studied any grammar, and if I hadn’t been reading native material since level 20, it wouldn’t be possible. My listening skills were kinda bad and I didn’t speak at all (I still don’t speak at all though 
)
As for forgetting things… I keep my vocabulary alive because I read all the time, but there are words I learned from WK (yes, even burned words) that I forget the meaning/reading if I don’t see them too much. So I guess most words I don’t see at all for a really long time are going to be forgotten.
In my experience with learning various things, you really only get good at thing that you are practicing. My anecdotal example comes from my hobby as a musician, I’m extremely good at certain things, to the point where I’ve been invited to play musical in several professional settings. But my sightreading is ass (reading music for the first time and playing it simultaneously). I never really practice sight reading though, when I get a new piece of music I take my sweet, sweet time with it until I’ve got all the tricky rhythms and melodies in my head. I’ve had the same experience with Japanese. I’ve spent countless hours pouring over grammar, writing kanji, reading books, practicing saying things out loud. But I rarely find myself doing many listening exercises, and like you might guess… I can’t understand people who talk to me, even if I know all the words and grammar. 
Anyway, not a lvl 60, but hopefully its insightful.
Please be aware, there’s no magical change that happens between level 59 and level 60 that makes us sudden gurus at Japanese. We can read a few more (comparatively obscure) kanji and vocab than people at level 50, but you still kinda need to work at things. 
I’ve been reading regularly since around mid 40s and that’s helped me a lot with retention. Thanks to reading I was exposed to a lot of kanji before even learning them in WK, which made it easier when they did come up in my lessons. Honestly level 60 isn’t like a magical gateway that makes you fluent just by reaching it. Just exposing yourself to Japanese outside lessons and reviews is the best thing to do in my opinion.
When you get level 60 you are still roughly 4 months out from “completing” everything right? Or is 60 the “Everything Burned” category?
Sorry I didn’t read your post with enough attention to notice you were asking level 60’s. Woops! We get this question a lot from people just starting out.
What shocked me the most about 60 was that there were more kanji and radicals lessons unlocked as soon as I leveled up. So yeah, it’s a “here’s some more things to learn” thing
They should make a special badge for people who have burned everything! And maybe as they release new content they would simultaneously release like new trim for completing the new stuff.
I can, uh … readdddddd things. Like Harry Potter and the Boku no Hero Academia manga. WaniKani really helped with the vocabulary but I never would have been able to read if it weren’t for studying grammar separately. I’ve probably forgotten a lot of vocabulary if I don’t see it often in text but when you read words a lot you remember them better ._.
I’m sorry if I sounded rude, English is not my first language so sometimes it’s hard to express myself properly xD Anyway, any replies are welcome, I just wanted to make a discussion thread on people’s experiences
I’ll comment even though i’m not 60 yet because I have a similar background of having studied Japanese in college as well as in my own time before I started wanikani. I learned grammar to a pretty decent level and for speaking I practiced a lot in school and during my study abroad.
During my study abroad and the subsequent N2 that I took I learned that my vocab/kanji knowledge was pretty bad. I’ve taken my sweet time with wanikani but my vocab has improved a good amount and my kanji knowledge has improved immensely. I’m going to take the N2 again this December and I think i’ll do fine now that I know most of the N2 kanji.
Listening/speaking I still need to try to use the new words I learn or else I won’t be able to recall most of them; I can read them but it takes extra practice to say them or sometimes even recognize them when they are spoken to me. (I started using kamesame.com recently to practice English → Japanese)
TLDR: Kanji 
| Vocab | listening 
| speaking
Thanks for the reply, it was really awesome to know that 
In fact, I was a bit down for I took a whole month to complete level 5 due to university stuff getting me super busy. I started to question if Wanikani would really be useful to take me where I want, and your reply gave me the hope I needed to continue!
Harry Potter has a manga?!!!
Edit: also @OPsan, a lot. It is definitely worth it.
I wish XD I read the Japanese BnHA manga and Harry Potter as a regular book