It seems possible to complete WaniKani in 1 year.
So roughly 1 lesson/week ?
However, having done nearly 100% correct reviews, learn new items as fast as they come,
it takes >10 days.
I find especially slow the unlocking of kanjis, equivalently getting guru on radicals,
which the authors put a lot of importance on, while it is just a viewpoint (10 years life in Japan, N1 level).
Is it something specific to first levels, or the “technically 1 year for completing” is a false claim ?
It is possible to pass a level in 7 days ? Thank you.
If you’re actually doing all lessons and reviews the moment they appear with 100% accuracy, it takes six days and twenty hours to complete each level - except for the fast levels, which take half as long (they have few or no radicals, so there’s only one lesson batch for those levels instead of two). At maximum speed, it’s juuuust possible to finish in a year, though maximum speed will require you to do a review at around 3am at least twice a week, so I wouldn’t try for it.
A more realistic scenario for healthier sleep could still get you there due to the ~15 fast levels around the end of the 60 levels.
First lessons: 7am, d0
L1A1: 11am, d0
L1A2: 7pm, d0
L1A3: 6pm, d1
L1A4 + Second lessons: 5pm, d3
L2A1: 9pm, d3
L2A2: 5am → 7am, d4
L2A3: 6am → 7am, d5
L2A4 + First new lessons of next level: 6am → 7am, d7
However, doing this will just take up so much time and energy, it would be much healthier not to. I’m currently on a small break from lessons right now due to overwhelming circumstances, inside and outside WaniKani.
EDIT: Didn’t mean to make that a reply to Belthazar
(2034 kanji + 6318 vocab) / 365 days = an average of 22.9 lessons per day, not including radicals.
If you do 2 batches of lessons per week, that would average 80.1 lessons per batch (again, not including radicals). That’s generally how often you get new batches of lessons if you’re going full speed.
If you maintain a strategically-timed, 7-day level-up schedule (instead of the 6d20h level-up), there’s never a need for middle-of-the-night reviews, and you’d only be ~1 week slower than the theoretical minimum possible completion time (which is still less than a year).
That’s what I did, so I just considered the 4-hour difference (between 6d20h and 7d) as a 4-hour grace window each week that meant I didn’t have to always hit the review times perfectly.
That’s strange that it takes you about 10 days to level up - I’m just a couple of levels ahead of you and I’m definitely not the fastest (there are about 40 lessons sitting in my queue right now) yet it takes less than that for me to level up. How many times a day do you do your reviews? If reviews are easy for you, you should do them at least three times a day.
Not all lessons/reviews are important for level up. If you schedule your kanji and radicals you can level up smoothly, since vocab doesnt affect levels. That being said, never skip vocab day!
It could be that you are getting some new kanji or radicals incorrect before they reach Guru for the first time, which would make levels take longer. If you’re concerned about level up speed, pay close attention to those reviews when they come up!
You have a lot of good answers, so I actually have a question for you, purely out of curiosity. If you’ve already passed N1, what’s your motivation for starting WaniKani?
You touched the right point. Succeding N1 doesn’t mean that you know the 2000+kanjis perfectly. Having in Japan for 10 years, I came to read most common kanjs counpound etc. but kanjis are my weak point.
A friend who has also N1 has suggested me WaniKani. I gave try and get hooked (I am working in front a computer, so I iddle on WaniKani), thinking that I will reach level >30 quickly. Not exactly the case…
Thanks for the many answers. I am monitoring more tightly the lapse times.
There is a great post of someone doing wanikani as an advanced learner here, with advantage and disadvantage :
And yes, one of the first thing for you to do should be to figure out how to go full speed, otherwise WK would be way too slow. It’s well explained in this guide :
