The Long Awaited Level 60 Celebration Post
I am not really an online forum person, but reaching level 60 on WaniKani does not feel real until it is memorialized with a post, so here it goes…
My Journey
A little under two years ago (December 3rd, 2023) I started WaniKani. I love traveling and visiting Japan has always been on my radar. Having just finished a masters degree, I ingeniously decided to undertake another challenging endeavor to take up any semblance of free time: learning Japanese. I passed N4 last December and am taking N3 this December. I will be eternally grateful for WaniKani as it launched my Japanese journey. This has led to weekly Preply sessions and even a trip to Japan where I spent the day in Sendai with my tutor, visiting Matsushima, an arcade, the batting cages, and enjoying 飲み放題 at an Izakaya. Beyond WaniKani and Preply, I have also been using MaruMori for grammar and recently started using Migaku. I have been reading and watching Crayon Shin Chan and I am a big fan of 深夜食堂 and 居酒屋新幹線.
My main use of WaniKani until about level 43 was through the internet browser on my phone, so unbeknownst to me I was essentially undertaking a vanilla WK challenge. Later I discovered Tsurukame and web browser plugins. While these tools saved my sanity from typos, I noticed my mastery of the kanji decreased slightly. For no logical reason I also refused to use vacation mode, and as you will see in the graphs below, there were periods where catching up on reviews became a nightmare…
Advice
If I had to give any advice, it would paradoxically be this: do not pay too much attention to online advice. What worked for me was following my own path, experimenting with different approaches, understanding consistency over burnout, and above all, having fun. The Japanese learning community is saturated with methods like AJAT and recommendations for hours of daily immersion. While these approaches are undoubtedly the fastest way to learn, my life is rooted in English (work, friends, teaching, my significant other, American sports, programming materials, favorite songs, etc.). Running from that reality would mean running from life a little.
Show us the stats already!!
Okay, I will, but please do not yell at me.
Second graph courtesy of: 日本語 | Johnathan Oneal
As you can see, I had three levels that extended longer than the y-axis of the display. One was after a summit at Stanford with some of my old teammates where I drank so much I couldn’t look at a review for two weeks, funny enough one was going to Japan, and for the longest level (55 days!) I was part of a long interview process for Jane Street and all my WaniKani time was replaced by LeetCode (gross) 
.
Why go through all the pain of keeping up with WaniKani?
Was it to one day work or live in Japan? Nope.
Was it to read untranslated materials? Not really.
Then why endure it all?
As a famous elf says:
ただの趣味だよ。
Acknowledgments
I never would have made it this far without J Cole, so I will leave you all with my controversial album ranking:
- For your eyes only
- 2014 Forest Hills Drive
- The off-season
- Friday Night Lights
- Cole world: Sideline Story
- Born Sinner
- Might delete later
- KOD
- The come up
- The warm up
(｀∇´)