I started WK 4,228 days ago. That’s a long time ago. 10 years ago, WK was still spinning up and most people hadn’t heard about it. I spent some time using it and then basically disappeared for ~10 years due to a lot of seriously crazy stuff happening in my life that I don’t need to get into. I signed in a few times every few years or so, but when I saw my ~2000 reviews I was like f*** that and signed out. I was around Level 15 or so and remained there for many years.
Last year, I decided that I would return to Japanese and make it a priority, given that the tumultuous period of my life had passed. Some how, some way, I would catch up on WK. And, after a few months of review catchup, I began leveling up again, and now I’m Level 30 living in Japan.
Maybe others in the language learning community have felt the same sense of pride I used to based on how quickly one acquires the language, and conversely, a sense of shame when progress isn’t made or something isn’t immediately understood. When I first studied WK, that’s how I approached learning language. At the time, I was a young guy at a “top engineering” college, and I thought I was pretty smart. It turns out that all pride was really unhelpful for a sustained practice like learning language, where much of the experience is like being a child again–so while I had a lot going on in the past decade, there was definitely a part of me that couldn’t emotionally handle the helplessness that comes with learning a language. Now that I’m in my early thirties, I just don’t care anymore, and that not caring has helped me to actually make progress again.
So, to ya’ll out there who have a sense of pride in language learning, or a sense of shame that you’ve been X days on level or Y days to reach level Z, I say: notice your pride and dampen it, and it will reduce your shame when you make mistakes or don’t progress in an ideal manner. Coming to terms with this has been the main reason I’ve made steady progress again. For those of you out there sitting on ~2000 reviews, don’t worry about it. It’s all good man. Even this post, however many days I’ve spent on WK–if that makes you feel better comparatively–maybe don’t feel better about it, if you know what I mean. Just continue. Show up as much as you can and you will make progress. Even if you miss a day, hey, just really try, actually try, to show up every day. Do your best tomorrow. Be kind to yourself bro. Throw the pride out, and you will find that the shame disappears as well, and someday, you will find that your language learning is going somewhere.
I’m back baby!
That’s all folks. Wish ya’ll the best in your language journey.
I’ve been off and on studying for years as well. Best wishes for your new study plans 
I saw a couple of posts with people mentioning they started “waaaaay back in (insert date <5yrs)” and oh boy that gave me some feelings! 
