Hey guys, I’ve been on WaniKani for… *checks notes* 77 days.
The progress I’m making is killing me lol, all because I can’t keep my schedule in check.
I learn consistently every day but my schedule is all over the place and it’s not like the designated time the WaniKani SRS has, so then I level up really slowly and this bugs me a lot.
Is there any tips or ways to get my schedule back on track? Right now it’s all scattered up. I usually do my reviews 2-3 times a day, but I have a flexible schedule not a fixed one. Plus having to constantly open up the site to do reviews is bothersome…
I’m at level 12 right now. Just leveled up before this post.
And this is the most important part.
As long as you keep doing that – schedule is not that important.
One of the main advantages of WaniKani – is that it provides you with a minimal daily routine. A backbone for all your Japanese studies.
I understand your desire to level up as fast as possible – I was exactly like that when I joined. But going too fast burned me around level 37 and I stopped doing reviews let them pile up, spent half a year trying to muster the courage to tackle the ever growing pile of them, then ended up doing a reset and starting again.
Please, don’t get me wrong – if you feel like you are capable of sustaining leveling up as fast as possible – sure, but be careful that you might eventually start feeling burned out.
So, returning to your question, I’d recommend not bothering with the schedule and just doing reviews when it’s convenient for you, as long as it’s every day.
Sorry, maybe this was not exactly what you asked, but I hope it does help you nevertheless.
instead of doing reviews as soon as they’re ready, it’s okay to make them wait until a specific time
eventually, they’ll all start lining up at that time
if you really want to be leveling quickly, i think the recommended number of review sessions is at least three per day? plus lessons
i know you said your schedule isn’t fixed, but if you can space the sessions at least four hours apart (how long it takes for new lessons to come back for review), then you should be good
I thought of doing that too, but all the reviews have different SRS levels so I still ended up with lots of scattered reviews. But thank you for the suggestion!
The levels will get more difficult but you have already established consistent everyday practice and familiarity with WK SRS which will stand to you in the higher levels. I don’t view WK SRS as having designated times - of course you can’t do a review before it’s available but you don’t have to do it as soon as it’s available. Just stick with daily new reviews and some new lessons and let SRS do its job. If you’re not reading already, I would also try to get into graded readers - seeing Kanji ‘in the wild’ makes WK easier and using them ‘in the wild’ is kinda the point.
Thank you for the encouragement and advice! I do think I shoulda wait til a certain time like many said in this post but it bugs me that I’m not leveling up at the speed I want to. There was a level where it took me 11 days to finish.
I’ve actually gone through quite a bit of graded reader so I’m following along the WaniKani Absolute Beginner’s Reading Club
Max leveling speed until you get quite far into the program is 1 level per 7 days, so I want to reiterate that you’re not that far off max pace. I can certainly appreciate that at times you feel limited by the SRS in your pace of progression; that’s by design and your workload is going to keep continuously ramping up as you learn new content.
If you do all your reviews at a consistent one or two times a day and steadily keep doing new lessons, you’re not going to progress much slower than if you were to do every lesson right at the time it comes out. If you really want to emphasize leveling speed (which probably isn’t the right thing to optimize, rather the focus should be on content retention), you should work on maximizing your radical and kanji lesson accuracy from lesson to guru 1, as this is what triggers level up. You could technically get to level 60 without every completing a single vocabulary lesson, though this would certainly be a very poor way to use WK.
Thank you for the advice! It helps knowing that I’m not trailing behind too much (Given that I had a level where it took me 11 days to finish…) I’d say my accuracy is not too bad now too.
I guess the question that I’d ask is whether there’s a real difference to you if you finish the 60 levels in 13 months or 18 or 24? Kanji (and the fraction of vocab here) is a component of the language and of course I think this is a great site for learning Kanji (and the forums are the best place on the Internet), but there’s so much to the language and the amount of time it’ll take to reach most peoples’ goals for learning the language is such that it may not be worth the effort to go as quickly as possible.
But that’s a decision based on what you want to accompish and how you think you can get there most effectively, if it means full speed ahead that’s good (and 11 days is still pretty quick relatively speaking).
You bring up quite an interesting question! I actually wanted to get fluent in Japanese within this year and plan on taking the Kanji Kentei sometime next year, which is why I wanted to get over with all of WK within this year. And you are right this forum is a heaven on earth, everyone is super supportive, kind, and there’s always countless help and resources available
plus lessons