Are you using Wanikani’s mnemonics?
I find if there’s a particular kanji that I keep getting stuck on, I go back to the mnemonic and really sit and think about it. Picture the scene in your head and tell a little story with it. If I’m not remembering Wanikani’s mnemonic, then I make up my own story that I can use to help remember the sound/meaning.
Good luck though, it’s hard, but if you’re persistent and put the time in you will see results!
What’s your process for learning new items in general? 
I think you’ve got it backwards, captain. 人 means person, and ひと, にん, and じん are pronunciations of 人 that are used in different contexts. ひと, にん, and じん are not meanings.
That would be like looking at the definition of “university”
and saying that “university” means /ˌyo͞onəˈvərsədē/
I think Marty means that one kanji can have multiple pronunciations.
The kanji meaning is the common theme.
人 = person
大人 = big person = adult
男の人 = male person
人数 = number of people
主人 = head person = head of household.
And so on.
Well I made it to level 2, putting off the vocab lessons helped focus on the rest.
That’s a perfectly valid way of doing it! Plenty of us stagger out our lessons to avoid learning too many new things at the same time. Congrats on the level up! Kanji is really difficult, but it’s worth it if you want to be able to do…just about anything in Japanese, really.
(personally, I still mess up whether 人 is read にん or じん often. Let it happen; it’s part of the process.)
Yes I’m realising at level 55 that Kanji has brought me a long way. I did learn through other resources but I think being able to read kanji is probably the most helpful thing. Of course even after I finish WK I won’t be fluent and I’ll still need to study the language more to be able to read fluently (and continue reviewing until I burn everything), but having this humongous task done has been really helpful.
Something I’ve done is, when I’ve found things like this, I hit up Google and ask and will usually find some sites that explain what the differences are. I use the romaji versions for these searches since it seems to help with getting results.
For example, I was having trouble with month (“gatsu” vs “getsu”) and found that “gatsu” is usually when talking about a specific month (e.g. November or 十一月 “jyuuichigatsu”) and “getsu” is talking about a month, but not one specifically (e.g. “next month” or 来月 “raigetsu”)
I’m sure I’m oversimplifying and that there are a bunch of exceptions to these, but this has helped me with month readings, especially when new ones are unlocked.
It’s been 6 days and i’m still not taking any extra lessons until the apprentice items are zero, currently at 25 and does not drop much due to poor memory! Soon…
It’s great that you’re keeping up with it! Building these strong foundations will make your later levels a lot easier
IMO this is too harsh for early levels, this approach I would use after lvl 11
Just keep apprentice below 80 and do 5 new lessons every day if still below 80, this pace is not hard.
WK is not a defnitive tool for kanji learning, you need some basic vocab to start grasping grammar not so later on.
just my 2c
if you are this frustrated now…search through the forums
WK is more than a bit of a mess and imagine yourself in the 20s and 30s
The leeches will kill you, there’s no mgmt tool and you seem to be on that path.
I migrated all of my wk away to kitsun. Going to finish wk using kitsun. Currently level 52. WK SRS IMO is the worst of all of them. You can use ANKI w/ Kanji Damage or other tools for free save a lot of money, pay for something good like Marumori, there are so many better tools out there now.
I’d tell you get out while you can. The time lost may be a “sunk cost” but you aren’t in too deep yet.
As far as radicals vs kanji vs vocab.
Depending on your desire you could also learn the more traditional radical names (geoduck is not a traditional radical name). I migrated away at level 44 when WK broke all the scripts for the gazaillionth time and fed up with their lack of actual concern for their users.
Kanji I just try to learn the on and kun readings and then try to remember them both when reviewing.
For vocab I don’t worrry so much about the kanji, but instead started to work on learning it as a “word” rather than the sum of it’s kanji. Trying to remember which reading went with which word I found just sort of insane when if you know the word you should be good. This has served me well and now I can think oh I know this but it’s read like the kanji from this other word or whatever.
Best of luck in whatever option you do, but my personal opinion is to seriously consider ditching WK for one of the much better and/or free tools. There are better ways to spend your learning time and hard earned money.
This is the way.
But also, I’m wondering if something like RTK would not be a good starting point so that @MARTY84 gets the idea behind radicals and kanji a little better.
Brute-forcing WaniKani is a pretty bad idea.
@ OP If you get the gist, you can use any SRS. That is, if you like the SRS app itself.
About Kanji, in my opinion, choosing Kun or On to learn first isn’t so bad, but still not good enough for “emphasis”. For example, if there are multiple On readings, not all readings are equal. じょ for 除 rather than じ, even if it is a valid On reading.
Nonetheless, I believe more in another approach, to learn vocabulary readings before learning Kanji readings. That is, Kanji meaning (not that important) => Vocab => Kanji reading + review Kanji meaning.
Radicals may have some usefulness, but not enough for unnecessary non-Japanese memorization. Even less useful when you stop using mnemonics to memorize. Mnemonic is just a way to memorize, but never a must. Also, not so Japanese-y.
Some of those early lessons are hard! I still mess some of them up. It’s okay if it takes you a long time to get the vocabulary especially.
I would not wait for zero if I were you.
Reading the word combinations and context sentences should help. Having a strong reason to learn is also important.
13 days on this level and not one new radical has appeared yet, still 54 lessons to go. The vocab from the previous level is killing me. 32 items in apprentice, all vocab, rest is in guru/master.
I’ll give marumori a go, the anki deck didn’t look appealing.
Do you have a valid subscription or are still using the free version?
If you have reached level 3 and are still using free/unpaid version you will not see any new items at all as the free version is restricted to the content for the first 3 levels only.
Only if they’ve finished level three. By my calculations, they’re still somewhere in the middle. Unless I’ve miscounted something.