This is kind of a self congratulatory and summary post for reaching level 30. Grats me, for someone who procrastinates and slacks a lot I did well! 
Hurray!
Some boring backstory that I randomly decided to write because I felt like it
My journey to learn Japanese started a long time ago, I think it’s been around 8 years since I learned hiragana? Back then I did multiple attempts on learning Japanese, studied a couple of grammar points and when it came to learning kanji my motivation suddenly dropped to zero and I stopped studying Japanese altogether. The huge wall of 2000+ kanji looked intimidating and insurmountable.
I first heard about WaniKani about one and a half years ago. People said you can learn all kanji you need in just about a year. I looked into it and all I found was good reviews, not a single bad one. It looked really suspicious and too good to be true 
I made an account but didn’t get hooked back then, I don’t know why. Then just around New Years I got this mail telling me about the sale on lifetime membership. I just finished studying, got a job so I actually had money. So I just went ahead, got the lifetime membership and told myself this is the year I’m gonna seriously start learning Japanese. Some may call it New Year’s resolution but I actually just decided on a whim. (Another reason is a game I really wanted to play released last year and there’s still no news whatsoever about a localization. Plus the final part of the game will be released later this year) That’s how I ended up here.
I started using WK on 8th Jan 2018 and just 8 months later I reached at the halfway mark. I didn’t go at the fastest possible speed and relatively fast nonetheless at roughly 8 days per level.
In the beginning I actually tried to optimize my lessons and reviews to level up as fast as possible without waking up in the middle of the night for reviews. But at some point I just stopped and started slacking and I did lessons and reviews when it was convenient. Though I was surprised to see I actually did some reviews in the middle of the night
Review time distribution
00:00 - 02:00: 14.06% (4661)
02:00 - 04:00: 4.75% (1574)
04:00 - 06:00: 0.30% (100)
06:00 - 08:00: 0.33% (109)
08:00 - 10:00: 3.75% (1244)
10:00 - 12:00: 11.17% (3704)
12:00 - 14:00: 11.95% (3961)
14:00 - 16:00: 8.01% (2655)
16:00 - 18:00: 7.95% (2637)
18:00 - 20:00: 9.32% (3090)
20:00 - 22:00: 8.11% (2688)
22:00 - 24:00: 20.30% (6731)
Code
Original code by rfindley in this post, slightly modified
What do you want now? (Request extensions here) - #574 by rfindley
wkof.include('Apiv2');
wkof.ready('Apiv2').then(fetch_data).then(process_data);
function fetch_data() {
return wkof.Apiv2.fetch_endpoint('/reviews');
}
function process_data(json) {
let stages = ['Lessons', 'Apprentice 1', 'Apprentice 2', 'Apprentice 3', 'Apprentice 4', 'Guru 1', 'Guru 2', 'Master', 'Enlightened'];
let reviews = json.data;
let hourCount = new Array(12).fill(0);
let hourCorrect = new Array(12).fill(0);
reviews.forEach(review => {
let hour = new Date(review.data.created_at).getHours();
let bin = Math.floor(hour/2);
hourCount[bin]++;
if (review.data.ending_srs_stage > review.data.starting_srs_stage) {
hourCorrect[bin]++;
}
});
let output = ['Review time distribution:'];
for (let i=0; i<12; i++) {
let time = ('0'+(i*2)).slice(-2)+':00 - '+('0'+((i+1)*2)).slice(-2)+':00';
if (hourCount[i] > 0) {
output.push(' '+time+': '+(hourCount[i]/hourCount.reduce(function(a, b) { return a + b; }, 0) * 100).toFixed(2)+'% (' + hourCount[i] + ')');
} else {
output.push(' '+time+': ---');
}
}
console.log(output.join('\n'));
}
There was a time when I took a lot of time to study grammar. I finished Genki 1 including workbook and did a bunch of chapters in Genki 2 in around 5-6 weeks. But it took so much time that my daily routine was basically wake up → work → eat → study → sleep → repeat. At some point I think it was too much for me. When I went on a trip for 3 days (didn’t learn during that time) and came back I just stopped studying Genki. I have yet to continue working on it but will pick it up again soon.
The was also the time when I slacked for 2 weeks and literally did nothing after I came home from my summer vacation → see that grey 27 days bar above. When I came back I did an insane review session and cleared all my accumulated reviews in one session. It took around 3 and a half hours and I felt more tired after that than after my university exams 
Coincidentally, the follow up of that review session is just about to come back.
Kinda feels like I’m about the face the mid-boss of the game xD So if by level 60 I reach the enlightenment of the almighty crabigator, maybe these 2 huge columns symbolize crab and alligator before they fused into one being and reached enlightenment?
A few weeks ago I was at Main Matsuri, a small Japan themed festival in Frankfurt, Germany. I was walking around with a friend who is majoring in Japanese and economy so he was pretty good at speaking Japanese. While walking around the stalls he spoke to many of the Japanese people at the stalls and I was just standing next to them and listening. I actually understood pretty much everything they were talking about but just couldn’t talk myself. I tried and only managed to say some simple and awkward sentences. It made me realize how important it is to practice talking in the language you’re learning. If only I’d had people to talk to 
Anyways, the next goals on my journey:
- Pick up Genki 2 again and finish, as well as review old grammar
- Do the text composition exercises. Because there’s technically no correct answer to writing free text I skipped all of them because I was lazy and had noone to look over it for me
Maybe I’ll just post them here. - Maybe pick up Tobira after Genki
- Actually start using Anki and add my own words instead of halfheartedly using pre-made decks
- Finding audio material for listening practice
- Trying to find people to talk Japanese to
- Reading visual novels and games in Japanese
TL;DR: 8 months after seriously studying Japanese I still suck at reading and speaking. But at least I can understand Japanese when people talk to me
Also, obligatory “WANIKANI IS TOO SLOW!!!”
Lifetime costs as much as 2 years. At my pace I could finish in about 16 months… wait, WaniKani is actually too fast