I’m level 41 atm and the first fast level will be 43. I have a tempo of doing 7 days per level. I want to do the fast levels as fast as possible, but do some of you have experience with this already? Would my daily amount of reviews more or less become double when doing the fast levels at max speed?
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I’m not quite at the fast levels, but I can make some guesses.
The amount of lessons per week would nearly double and there would certainly be a heavier apprentice burden, but your overall reviews wouldn’t quite double since a lot of reviews are still coming from the slower paced Guru+. With that said, after a week in the fast levels, and likewise after the following two weeks, the fast level Guru and Guru 2 reviews would come due and increase the load.
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It will of course hugely depend on your accuracy, but i recommend searching for fast level 60 posts and looking if they included time/review over time graph
I remember omk3 doing it this year with basically max speed and they included reviews per day graph too (dislaimer - crazy good accuracy), which might give some insight
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If I remember the calculations correctly, your workload will increase by about 12% if you do all of your reviews daily and have an accuracy above about 90%. It varies a lot if your accuracy is lower or if you don’t do reviews daily.
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trying to do the faster levels somewhat fast (average of 5 days per level im guessing):
Has increased my daily reviews from 300-400 to 400-550 roughly
and also time spent:
*Im usually around 85% accuracy
hope I could help *-*
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Which userscript are those bottom graphs from?
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its a site like wkstats, you put your api key in and get your metrics etc.
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I’ve since reset, but I tried to max speed the fast levels (or, I aimed for 4-5 days per level). I was getting between 300 and 500 reviews per day, which to be honest wasn’t too horrible as long as I stayed on top of them. Hardest part was probably keeping up with the 0/0 challenge, but if I wasn’t doing that I would’ve fallen behind on vocab lessons (since I use a reorder script to do new radicals and kanji right away). I don’t really think it’s possible to max speed without reordering.
I’m also coming up on the fast levels again and I’m planning to max speed them again, I think what I learned last time is to try your best to keep kanji reviews all in one big pile and do them as soon as they come up. If they’re all getting reviewed at different times, then keeping under like 4.5 days means setting late night alarms, which I did from time to time. Here’s my graph from when I did them:
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Thanks for the insights guys, very helpfull. I do use the reorder script, without that I would never be able to do the 7 days per level tempo.
But so far I never missed a day, do the reviews as soon as they come up and lately it’s becoming a bit of a struggle. Feels like my life has been taken over by WK 
Maybe I’ll settle for 5 days for the fasters levels, we’ll see how it goes. According to WKstats I’m done in 2 months and 10 days at fastest speed and 4 months and 13 days when I don’t calculate in the fast levels. Being done in 2 months and 10 days sounds more appealing… then after a year I can finally stay in bed a bit longer
I’ve been doing all of the fast levels at max speed, maybe like 1 or 2 hours off, but the most annoying part I’d say is doing all kanji the same hour I level up and making sure I catch every review. With 5 days you should have a good bit of leniency so I think it’s definitely going to be a lot more bearable. For me, I can finally sleep earlier once I’m done.
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I did it, and I don’t really recommend it. 7-day levels was a nice pace that I could maintain pretty easily. 4-day levels got a bit rough. I fell behind by 1.5 days due to some IRL issues, and that very rapidly compounded. In the end, sticking to my 7-day schedule would’ve got me to 60 sooner.
Plus, quite a few of the fast levels have HORRIBLE mnemonics, IMO. I hated how reliant WK is on radicals at this point. Take 惨 for example. I see that as “soul + participate”, but they use “soul + private + big + hair”. I’m sure that approach works better for some people, but I’m not one of them.
Regardless, you know your own abilities better than we do. If you have the time and motivation to take on a significantly higher workload while trudging through some of the most difficult levels, go nuts! If you aren’t really sure, then I’d recommend sticking to somewhere in the 5-7 day range to be safe.
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As someone working through the fast levels right now at a slow pace (10-20 lessons per day), be careful of all these rando lessons they are throwing in the old levels. It has really messed up my pacing with completing the levels (my goal is kanji and vocab lessons at 0 at the same time as level up).
It also feels like they throw new stuff in the fast levels because they are “shorter”.
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That’s what I’m doing already, I learn the Kanji for my next level the day before I get to that level so I can do the level-up reviews and all the kanji lessons within the same hour. But with all the extra reviews doing those fast levels at max speed will probably be a bit too much for me. We’ll see how it goes 
How awesome is that when we finally can have a normal sleeping rhythm again right? 
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Ah that sucks, I already saw a couple of those and those mnemonics didn’t work for me so I made my own. I’ll just try to stick to a 5 day pattern and not be tempted to do them as fast as possible. I think you’re right that it’s better to take them a bit slower in the end.
I didn’t do max speed during the fast levels for the most part, I was too paranoid about burning out even though I already spent like ungodly amounts of studying every day. I believe the fast levels are a trap that too many fall into and get overwhelmed. Besides there is no real reason to speed through the last 20 levels unless you already balance it out with alot of immersion aswell.
It depends.
If you are fine with doing 450-ish reviews daily, go for it. But don’t skip on immersion.
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Honestly if you’ve felt like this for a longer time (aka not a temporary slump), I would not speed up for the fast levels, because that will add additional pressure and more reviews.
I’ve done the fifties at 4 days kinda on the clock. So I’d do the level’s kanji lessons in the morning, then level up in the evening 3 days later, and the next level’s kanji lessons the following morning (and time the kanji reviews fairly on the nose); basically, I always did lessons at the same time of day, no matter if I leveled up the night before or had gotten a bit late and leveled up in the morning.
I think I have/had at least 100 more reviews per day on average after a little while (I’m only recently 60). Also to note, I didn’t do all the fast levels in the 40s faster than normal. I tried a 6 day level there and at the time that felt quick. (Changed some things around to make fast levels in 50s work.)
Honestly, as @ToastDefender mentioned, it can be tempting to go fast, but if it burns you out it will end up being longer than just slowing down a bit.
Better to back off, slow down and focus on other aspects of Japanese if you’re actually starting to feel burnt out. Otherwise, it can be quite exhilarating to go fast and see the end rush closer and closer.
Which option is best for you, you’ll know best.
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I didnt want to be the first to derail this discussion with opinions, but since it has already happened and since you also stated that you feel like your life has been taken by WK, ill share my unsolicited advice once again.
I dont recommend speedrunning fast levels to anyone besides:
a) people already really good with japanese that know majority of the stuff, so it would be a bit boring otherwise
b) people that are learning japanese for like 8h a day and its their whole focus, since they have plenty of time to spare for extra SRS without sacfrificing immersion or other parts of study like grammar/vocab
The kanji gains after level 30 are less and less impactful, especially 50-60, i actually even slowed down a bit in the second half in favor of reading manga more and i havent regreted that decision at all - not only that, but slowing down helped me phase better into next steps too, instead of going with big bang and having to change my whole schedule around.
I think the main question to ask yourself is - is your goal finishing WK, or is it to get better at Japanese?
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“I think the main question to ask yourself is - is your goal finishing WK, or is it to get better at Japanese?”
That is a very good question Ofcourse I want to get better at Japanese, that is why I’m spending so much time on it every day, but honestly I also want to be done with WK. With the end in sight - I’m willing to spend less time on immersion the next 2/3 months and fully dedicate my time on WK.
Now 2 weeks more or less doesn’t matter so what I took from all the advice here is that it’s better to settle for 5 days or so per fast level, which means I’ll be done in around 3 months from now.
Can’t wait to have all that time to spend fully on immersion and grammar
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So I’m in the fast levels now, yesterday I did 100 lessons and had 400 reviews. That will be fun when the Guru’s of the fast levels will join the review batch in the next weeks
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I may just be out of the loop, but what is a “fast level” ?