I had to leave WaniKani in September, because I wanted to switch to the life time subscription in january during the sale. I think I put it in vacation mode but I am not sure.
When I came back, I thought I will first check how much I remember of the burned items I already had (I guess less than 100 - I am level 6 btw). I already started over once, because I had a long gap and I really didn’t want to do everything from the beginning a 3rd time
The burned items were ok, so I continued my lessons, and suddenly a big amount of the reviews I head were burned as well (I guess, because of the time I wasn’t there). I always feel very insecure with my Japanese and now I feel even in my self study like an imposter, because I think “do I really know this word?”.
Maybe it’s weird and unfitting here. I apologize if this is the case.
If you burned them it means that you successfully reviewed them, so what’s the problem?
You’ll encounter all those kanji a trillion times when you start reading Japanese, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to revisit them.
I think most of us can relate to this feeling but here’s the trick: you don’t know the word. You are an imposter. That’s fine, that’s part of the process. Flashcards are not a good simulation of actually knowing the language. Just like using training wheels on a bike means that you don’t actually know how to ride. But it is a useful stepping stone to greater things.
WaniKani should make people pay $20 to reset, this way users wouldn’t be so tempted to do it. IMO the only situation where it makes sense to reset is if you’ve dropped Japanese entirely for a decade and are effectively restarting from scratch. Learning Japanese is too long a journey to be doing the same content over and over again for months on end.
Thank you for your words! Probably the ones I needed your words with the 20$ really made me think. I think I would suggest the same to someone who’s learning my native language, that it’s not necessary to know every word instantly. I also still look up some words in my language when they are very specific. So thank you a lot!
It’s ok to forget things, and have to learn them again. Don’t reset, just keep going.
I’m a serial restarter and the biggest mistakes I made in the past was restarting fully (yes there is a reason I wrote fully)
WK is a newer tool for me, but I was using JP101 and when I last restarted, I learned from my past mistakes and went full steam ahead with the goal to be caught up on all old material in a month. Then I picked up right where I left off and it was fine! So much came back so quickly, not all of it but more than enough! The brain just needed to be reactivated.
WK, however, is very slow if reset. A 1- month catch up is pretty much impossible. You’ll slow yourself down.
So if you want to “catch up”, just do your reviews, and maybe stick some burned items into Anki or JPDB for a month. Or not. You’ll see a lot of them if you read. Point is, don’t waste months doing something that your brain can probably handle much quicker since it isn’t actually new.
your words with the 20$ really made me think. I think I would suggest the same to someone who’s learning my native language, that it’s not necessary to know every word instantly. I also still look up some words in my language when they are very specific. So thank you a lot!