This my “halfway” through celebration post! After falling off the Review Wagon quite a few times over the years, I’ve stuck with it and I’ve made it to level 31! That’s more than a thousand kanji “learned”. It feels like at least some sort of accomplishment.
My unsolicited advice and thoughts:
Commit to it. Learning Japanese is a long road that I’ve probably only barely started. This is but a waypoint, but I can see the progress I’ve made so far.
Do your reviews! That’s, as always, the best advice for Wanikani. Do them every day.
But, if you fall off the wagon, YOU CAN GET BACK ON! I’ve come back from stacks of 1500+ reviews a good number of times on the way here. Don’t give up! Just on that big stack. Take the first step. When I have a huge stack, I just shoot for ending the day with 100 fewer reviews than the previous day. It’s 100% doable.
The advice I’ve seen all over the community is to try to keep around 100 items in Apprentice. I find that if I never go above that, I never feel completely overwhelmed.
Go at your own pace. If you look at my history, you’ll see I’ve been at this for a while. I completely started over once (I do not recommend that having done it once). Find what you’re comfortable with and go for it.
Finally for GenXers and above: you’re not too old! You can do this! I’m 53 and still making progress every day!
Congratulations on reaching 1000 kanji. I am counting down the hours until I hit 1000 myself. Currently I am on 996
My advice to anyone using Wanikani is to listen to each vocab word a few times whenever you review it (shortcut is J). Not only does it somehow make the word easier to remember, it also teaches you to distinguish between long and short vowel sounds. I only discovered this feature 500 kanji in.
Yes I always listen to the new word I am learning multiple times and if I make a mistake then I listen to the word a few times again, reread the context sentences again. I had no idea there was a shortcut for listening to audio. I will try pressing J next time.
I’m also at L31 after three years and agree with everything you have said. Right now I have over 90 items in Apprentice and sadly almost all are Leeches. That limits my headroom for new stuff but I never move on until I’ve created that headroom to keep it under 100 items. Thanks and congratulations!
We’re on the same boat!