Many years ago, every manager at Mitsubishi Semiconductor America was forced to take an absolutely ridiculous 3-day class titled (believe it or not): “Adventures in attitude.”
I remember precisely two things from the first day of class:
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The instructor’s truly awesome toupee. Not Willard Scott, “wow that looks real” awesome, wounded animal awesome.
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His offhand comment that, “There are very few things that are completely under your control with any undertaking, but attitude is one of them.”
That last isn’t just a platitude. Attitude is important for any difficult, worthwhile, time-consuming task, and learning another language certainly qualifies.
At the risk of sounding preachy, thoughts like “painfully slow,” “not good”, “frustrated”, and “going too fast” are an easy trap to fall into, but they aren’t at all helpful (or even consistent!). It really does help to focus on the positive:
In just 30 days you’ve “learned” (but have yet to master) 212 items of Japanese vocabulary. You can read, pronounce, and understand several Japanese words that you probably didn’t know before. Thats over 40 new words per day (no mean feat).
You’ve also been at it long enough for it to become a habit. Every day you continue, you demonstrate a level of persistence and determination that few possess. You’ve also identified two things you need to work on (slowing down to avoid typos and creating/solidifying mnemonics for the radicals). That’s fantastic. Keep it up!
I can assure you that in the real world, Wanikani levels are nearly meaningless. How long it takes you to progress a level is even more meaningless. But every new word you are able to read and understand in another language is priceless.
As others have indicated, you’ll almost certainly find it much more fast-paced and difficult in just a few months. Patience and persistence are virtues.
One of the simplest attitude enhancers is simple streak tracking: every day you do at least one review, mark a big red X through that day on a prominently displayed calenar, and play don’t break the chain (or install something like the wonderful heatmap userscript and have it track your streaks for you). The first review every day is always the hardest: celebrate whenever you do it!
