Focus on Reviews or Lessons

[myishag]

Hello all! If my reviews go well over the next day and a half I will be moving on to level 12. Problem is level 11 really kicked my butt and now I am worried I’m starting to get burned out because I’ve reached the point we’re I am unfamiliar with a lot of the vocabulary and Kanji I’m learning now. Below is a screenshot of my stats. Do I have too many? At this point should I keep pressing on or focus on lowering that number a bit?

[irrelephant]

I think no one can tell you in absolute numbers what you should be doing. We are all different, have our own stress levels, goals, talents and the advice would also be different for someone who has 30 minutes per day available vs. someone who has 8 hours of free time every day.

That being said,

I am worried I’m starting to get burned out because I’ve reached the point we’re I am unfamiliar with a lot of the vocabulary

sounds to me like you could benefit from a week or two of focusing on your reviews and properly reviewing every item that you get wrong. Maybe write those kanji down, review the radicals that make the items up, look at the mnemonics again, make up your own if you realize that the default ones don’t work for you. In my experience and based on what I’ve read here, you will know when it is time to take up lessons again. At least for me I reach some point where things settle down, I don’t have any “what the hell is that kanji? I’ve never seen that one before” moments anymore and I feel like I really want to learn new stuff again. And that is when I start getting back into lessons.

I’ve seen people mention that they take a break from lessons every 10 or 20 levels so that things can settle a bit. If you don’t have some super important reason to be in a hurry that sounds like a good advice to me. Others enjoy the race & challenge and want to be as fast as possible but this is not for everyone. If you are already worrying about burning out then I think there might be a good reason for that and and giving yourself some time to breathe might be a nice thing :).

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Edit, shorter answer: If the answer is “focus on reviews or lessons?” then I would always say: reviews. I think, no matter what your numbers are, it only makes sense to add to your review pile if your reviews are going well and you feel like you have the previously learned items under control.

[yorbon]

In a (to me) normal situation, these guru-and-below number shouldn’t be a problem (I had like 6/700 guru at one point in the past). If you feel you’re pressured to much in reviews, probably mainly from level 11, I suggest looking at those again, maybe do some additional research to become familiar with those kanji. This will help remembering them, and so with the pressure. After a few days, you can probably start taking lessons again. You will feel it when you’re ready.

It never hurts to just wait a few days.

[QuackingShoe]

Your number of items are fine. But if you’re stuggling now that you’re seeing things that are new to you, consider the possibility that you’ve been coasting until now and haven’t properly learned how to use the mnemonics? If so, buckle down on that. Spending time on getting the mnemonics down will save you time in the long run.
But also! Do whatever you need to to not burn out. Just reviewing for awhile is fine.

[Joshikii]

I had the same issue as you, wherin my levels were taking 20+ days because I was forgetting all my readings and only doing my reviews in my lunch break.

My advice is to pick two times 12 hours apart (for me these are 6am and 6pm) to do reviews and follow this guide, get ultimate timeline and ultimate re-order scripts installed, and respect the review intervals of WK and I soon found myself getting 95%+ in each review! Maybe hold off on leveling for a little while to make doubly sure you guru all your lvl 11 vocab, but otherwise you should be golden

[ctmf]

I think the answer to low accuracy is always “stop doing lessons”. Let the reviews keep coming until you’re getting them all pushed to higher levels, like master at least. Don’t be afraid of failing, that just lets you review them more until you DO know them. But don’t add new lessons on top of that.

I’d also say not to use the reorder script (if you are).

[tusharjoshi]

Learned wkstats.com site from your post. Interesting way to look at your progress, thanks for that. I know this information must be available someone else at appropriate location, but for me it came from your post while browsing the community posts.

[Aikibujin]

I’ve had to reset my levels twice now because I got too overwhelmed.

My new rule for this go through is if I don’t get 90% or above on a review, I can’t do any new lessons.
If I do get 90%+ I then determine how many lessons I want to do based on my estimated number of items per day, which I generally aim for 100-150 depending on how I’m feeling about my progress and success. If I feel I’m smashing it and everything is breezy I might push it to 200. But if I know I’m struggling, I’ll keep it down to around 100.

Here’s the API link for Expected Number of Daily Reviews

がんばって！

[myishag]

I want to thank everyone for your input here! I really appreciate all the advice I’ve received!!

I’ve seen people mention that they take a break from lessons every 10 or 20 levels so that things can settle a bit. If you don’t have some super important reason to be in a hurry that sounds like a good advice to me. Others enjoy the race & challenge and want to be as fast as possible but this is not for everyone. If you are already worrying about burning out then I think there might be a good reason for that and and giving yourself some time to breathe might be a nice thing

This suggestion is super helpful! I was rushing through for the JLPT test last year but now that that is done I feel like I don’t have to rush my way through. I think taking a break every 10 or 20 levels is a great way to make sure I am giving enough attention to critical condition items.

Your number of items are fine. But if you’re stuggling now that you’re seeing things that are new to you, consider the possibility that you’ve been coasting until now and haven’t properly learned how to use the mnemonics? If so, buckle down on that. Spending time on getting the mnemonics down will save you time in the long run.

I think you hit the nail on the head with this one. I guess I really did not consider it but up until the last level or two I have been relaying heavily on learning the kanji via vocabulary association and only relying on the mnemonics when I did not have a vocabulary word to reference. This was easier in early levels because I had less new content to learn but at level 10 and 11 I am seeing less familiar kanji and vocabulary and yet for some reason I kept trying to go at the same pace and do all available lessons in one day. Once I start back up lessons again I’m going to limit myself to 5 a day so that I don’t get overwhelmed.