How did I reach Level 2 even though I didn't finish Level 1 vocab

I am very new obviously and don’t know how most things work but I’m certain I’ll slowly get the hang of it. Though, I thought after I would finish my Level 1 radicals, kanji and vocab, I would hit Level 2. But to my surprise even though I didn’t finish Level 1 vocabs, I am now Level 2. Now I am have some 70 pending lessons. How does this work?

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Ok I am so confused now. Here in this forums, it shows I am Level 1, even though I also got an Email from Wanikani congratulating me that I hit Level 2

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You level up when 90% of a given level’s kanji items reach “guru” status. Vocabulary is not a factor in the equation.

As for the forum, it doesn’t always update in sync with the website. Logging out of the forum and back in will update it for sure though.

You can find more info about how the system works in the FAQ.

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Just keep in mind that you don’t need to do all the lessons right away

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Aah I see, I gotchu. It all makes sense now.

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Just keep in mind that you don’t need to do all the lessons right away

Not true! Do them all, right away! :smiley:

In case it doesn’t come across, I am totally joking. Everyone should go at their own pace and keep it comfortable.

Doing lessons as soon as they appear and doing them all in one sitting is the path to absolute pain…

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Hmmm. How many lessons do you guys do normally in a day?

I use a script to put the Kanji ahead of vocab.

Because I am trying to level up sooner, I will do Kanji and radicals before vocab.
I can comfortably do about 15 lessons in a sitting.
If I have 60 lessons, I will knock them out over 4 days. Sometimes if I want the SRS pain I do 40 or more in a day. That is not recommended if you don’t want to be bombarded with large amounts of reviews every day.

Always keep in mind that the more lessons you do in a single sitting, the more reviews you will get in a day because of that. And assuming you get all of them right every time, you will see them again in a day, then 2. Or something like that.

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For me that actually depends on what I do lessons on: I can learn up to 20 radicals and don’t feel too overwhelmed in numbers and stuff I need to remember at reviews, but when learning new kanji i like to limit myself to 10 beacause you get to learn two things: meanings and readings. When a lot of the kanji got the same form and meaning from previous radicals I can do maybe 15. Similar for vocabluary: 15-20 depending on how many similar readings and meanings they got (it’s easier to learn 一台、二台、五台 in one sitting than a bunch of totally different words).

EDIT: I’m still experimenting on the number when mixing radicals, kanji and voc. Last three days I started a new level and got 15 voc from the last level and 5 radicals from the new and that so far worked fine for me.
Just do what you feel comfortable with.

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Honestly, depends on the day and the lessons. Usually I’ll try to keep my apprentice items under 150 (preferably even below 100), since these tend to come up most often and make up most of your daily reviews.

Furthermore, I find radical reviews to be a lot easier and quicker than kanji and vocab reviews. So I’ll usually just do all radical lessons in one batch, as this doesn’t increase your workload by too much. For vocabulary lessons, the difficulty of the vocabulary will vary like @JuiceS mentioned, so I will treat related vocabulary items as just 1 vocabulary entry if there are no weird exceptions to the reading or meaning. I usually restrict myself to not doing more than 20-25 lessons in one go, as doing many lessons at the same time tends to create huge spikes of reviews later on, which I try to avoid.

The actual number of lessons I end up doing depends mostly on how many apprentice items I currently have, and the kind of lessons there are. For me it’s usually around 20-25 lessons, but this will vary from person to person. Just take the first few levels to figure out a pace that works well for you and try to stick to that.

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Thanks for all the suggestions guys. Appreciate it really <3

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Everyone’s already answered all your questions it seems but I wanted to say welcome to Wanikani!! :crabigator: :heart: And congrats on leveling up, I look forward to seeing you around

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Everyone has given good answers and helpful advice… So I’ll just offer up my learning schedule for you to consider. I personally do all the radical and kanji lessons as soon as I level up, in one sitting. This is a lot, but I do it to get the SRS to line up with my schedule. Then every day after that I do 20 vocab lessons. Again when the second batch of kanji unlock after I’ve guru’d the radicals I learn all the kanji at once.

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I don’t have anything to add to the good advice from others. But I just wanted to link this…

Well worth a read if you haven’t seen it already.

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