Fast levels experience?

The fast levels are where, for 90% or more of the kanji on the level, you don’t have to learn (and Guru) a radical first, so the level can be completed in half the time.

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Damn, they should make every level like that (screw radicals :nauseated_face:).

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best of luck, it’s pretty fun

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Then people wouldn’t pace themselves, get overwhelmed, fail, then whine on the forums about how bad WK is. I believe radicals locking levels is a good thing.

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They could just lock half the kanji behind guru-ing the first half lol. Radicals are useless (in my humble opinion).

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That’s a “problem” with literally every SRS-based solution. You can get overwhelmed with Anki, clozemaster, memrise and others as well. Yet they let you decide how fast you want to go.

That’s really one thing that I dislike about WK, I don’t mind opinionated defaults but let me configure my own experience if I want to override them…

Not to mention that many radicals are literally useless because they either use a made-up meaning or are just repeats of previously learned kanji. Why force me to relearn 正 as a radical when I’ve studied it through kanji and vocabulary for like 5 levels already? Just a waste a of time. Not to mention ridiculous ones like “wolverine” or “jet”.

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Then don’t do wanikani? Why are you in such a rush?

Because I enjoy the experience overall but I still have feedback?

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Hello future reader who searched for this topic. My advice - DON’T. Unless you want to do around 400-600 reviews per day and learn all Kanji + vocab in 3 days per level on top of that.
I’m almost there, it’s doable but all the 7 days per level periods seem like a holiday compared to this tempo :-/

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If it makes you feel any better, I’m here in the fast levels myself feeling much the same pressure. :slight_smile:

My question for you is, would you have gone this fast if you knew how many reviews you’d have?

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Ah nice to hear I’m not alone in suffering :slight_smile: Yes I was kind of aware what to expect, but not how tiring it is to do both so many reviews day in day out and combining that with learning so much new stuff everyday.

But I decided to give it a try and slow down when it became too much. I reached that point but with 14 days to go until 60… I’m going to push on.

I long too much for my cake.

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In the same boat as well, although I’m doing it for the second time. I do have a good reason to do the fast levels quickly, but my motivation is not super high at the moment :confused: I mostly just want to finish WK before the end of March and defend my 0/0 streak (been going for over 70 levels now, if I broke it now I might cry.)

Never again <3

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Why are you doing it for the second time if I may ask? I’m sure I will forget a lot after I’m done, but I’m using apps like Kanji Study to keep training them and if I encounter something while reading which I forgot, I look it up again and re-learn it.

Doing WK in 1 year was quite a commitment and I’m glad I did it this way, but noooo way will I do this for a second time :-/

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When I did WK the first time I didn’t have much grammar knowledge so I couldn’t do anything but the most basic reading, which doesn’t use much kanji. I had a couple apps for practicing but I got busy with school and forgot everything, and I reset to level 20 about a year and a half later.

This time around I’m actually reading and practicing, and I’m going to Japan to study for 2 semesters starting in April (I’m doing max speed so I can hit level 60 before I leave actually) so this will be the last time! Re-learning is much, much easier than learning, and I definitely feel it’s actually sticking this time. In summary, I’m stupid, but with luck, I will now be less stupid.

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Ah no that all makes sense then. I noticed too already that relearning forgotten stuff works so much better. Like you’re telling your brain that this stuff is really important so it freaking better remember it from now on :slight_smile:

Pretty awesome you’re going to study in Japan!

Those last levels are really much harder than the rest eh… partly because of the ridiculous amount of reviews and new items to learn in this tempo, but also the vocab itself is… less interesting to learn at this point.

But oh well, you’re nearly there. Best of luck!

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Bring it on! (ง’̀-'́)ง

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I look forward to seeing you guys in your level 60 posts :stuck_out_tongue:

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I’m still far from the fast levels but I’ve been (very slowly) reading some real Japanese content lately and it really cements my opinion that not only is it probably not a good idea to speed up once you get to the “fast” levels, actually it might even be a good idea to slow down and dedicate less time to WK and more to immersion/grammar/…

Every time I encounter an unknown Kanji in the wild that I feel like looking up, I check the corresponding WK level. Easily 95+% of the time it’s below level 40. I do sometimes encounter a higher level kanji (I stumbled upon 煩 yesterday, all the way to level 60) but clearly by my very unscientific sampling the returns start to diminish heavily around level ~35.

I don’t know if I’ll have the mental fortitude to slow down when I get there, but at this point I fully intend to keep my weekly pace all the way to 60.

I’m actually looking forward to the fast levels so that I don’t have to bother rushing the radicals anymore. My #1 complaint about WK at this point is that I can’t just disable radicals altogether…

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I agree it’s better to slow down near the fast levels. But too little too late, 60 :slight_smile:

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I think it entirely depends on the pace you’re going at. I do 15 lessons a day and read a lot. There’s a lot of kanji in the fast levels I already know which kind of motivates me to continue so I can get them into an SRS routine and really get them in my head for good. My friend slowed down at 43 and has been going at a snails pace the last 3 years and is now 49. My goal right now is to catch up to him and push him to finish lol 16~ levels to go!

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