So, I’ve been doing pretty well since I last posted. Just got my first burned yesterday. But I’ve come into the problem where I’m getting all of my kanji done, but I’m falling severely behind on vocab. I’m on lvl 10 currently and am 3 lvls behind on vocab (still doing it for lvl 7, 8, 9, and this lvl respectively). How can I still prioritize kanji but also get my vocab done for each level so I’m not falling behind. Even more so in the future.
priority for me is usually radicals and initial kanji on level unlock. then when i guru radicals, i go through the new kanji first before vocab at least two review cycles then do unlocked vocab in mid level to space things out. then the final kanji for level up unlocks next wave of radicals/kanji which I do then later in day the new vocab to stagger things.
Do more lessons 
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You can’t. As long as you prioritize kanji, you will continue to fall behind in vocab. Several levels back, I would have about 100 vocab left to do in Level X when I leveled up to X+1. BUT, what I did was forced myself to do all the vocab before I did anything in the new Level which was a pain (wanting to do my new radicals and kanji)!
Then the new Lesson Picker came along and it was like the olde knight in shining armor! It allowed me to pick my kanji and vocab in a ratio that allowed me to level up with just a handful of vocab left (generally…it can’t ALWAYS be done). For example, I literally just leveled up and I have only 11 vocab left in my previous level to do.
In Level 10, you have 40 kanji and 143 vocab. So if you did 7 vocab for every 2 kanji you’ll level up with just a few vocab left. Note that you have to play it by ‘sight’ because there’ll be times when you’ll have zero to very few vocab left to do and so you’ll have to do more kanji to open up more vocab. BUT it is a GREAT feeling to have so few vocab left before I can get into the new radicals and kanji!
Good luck to you!
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Prioritize vocab that has readings you are needing to reinforce, and leave some of the extra ones for later. Its ok to have a handful of vocabulary from a few levels behind as you go, and you can whittle those down on days when you feel like doing some extra lessons.
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by getting vocab done faster
can’t think of any trick there’d be to it, just spend a half-hour or so on WK whenever you level up
since you seem to be rather in the hole when it comes to vocab, I recommend intentionally failing your kanji reviews for a while so you can catch back up on vocab (idk tho, level 60 notification still pending 
)
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Personally, I don’t move on to my next level until all my vocab from previous levels is complete. It’ll all be the same amount of effort at the end of the day, so why not just do it now. It helps reinforce things which I find pretty handy.
Also I don’t wanna get to level 60 with 2000+ vocab lessons remaining as I personally feel that would be a little overwhelming. So if I can keep consistent I’ll be leveling up every 12-16 days rather than every 9, and that’s still plenty fast for me
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You could join the 0/0 challenge, where you get all lessons and reviews to 0/0 at some point before you’re about to level. This will force you to clear your vocab.
Otherwise, schedule things so you can fit in vocab while waiting for kanji to guru. For example here is my current leveling plan:
- Day 0: 3 radical + 2 kanji until all radicals are done
- Divide remaining kanji by 3 (for example I had 21 left at this level, so 7)
- Day 1-3: 3 kanji + 2 vocab until I meet my minimum daily kanji limit from above
- Day 4: radicals guru, do new kanji asap in batches of 3 kanji + 2 vocab
- Day 5-8: split remaining and any new vocab (from kanji that is guruing late because of mistakes) somewhat evenly-ish until its level up day to get to 0/0
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Gratz on the burn!
You need to balance your workload against how fast you want to finish. The number of lessons a day will tell you how many days it’s going to take you to reach level 60 (divide 8900 by number of lessons a day). Also if you have a steady number of lessons a day, you’ll eventually get a commensurate number of reviews a day, about 100 reviews a day in the case of 15 lessons, depending on your level of accuracy. Is that how much work you want to do?
If you are getting ahead of the vocab, that just means that for the amount of effort you’ve chosen, you are doing too much kanji and not enough vocab, so prioritise radicals and kanji less on your lesson picks and catch up the vocab.
Alternatively you can do vocabulary faster by doing more lessons a day and risking overwhelming yourself later on reviews (say 20 lessons a day to build to around 135 reviews). It’s only those who want to go the absolute fastest with the most amount of work who also have to always prioritise their radicals/kanji over vocab to get there. (I calculated I’d max out at about 24 lessons a day with around 160 or 170 daily reviews — far too rich for my blood. I’m trying 15 lessons a day to see how that goes.)
This is your problem. You shouldn’t prioritize anything. Ideally, you will learn vocabulary right after you learn kanji. Vocab is there to reinforce the kanji. And also don’t forget that to learn japanese, knowing just kanji is not enough. You need to know how is it used.
The way I do it these days is to ignore next level until I am down to about 100 or less lessons from last level. Than I do 5 kanji + 5 vocab until I finish all the new kanji, than continue with vocab until I unlock next level and reduce the available lessons below 100.
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I make sure all my vocab for the previous level is done before I start on my second set of kanji. I also chip away at the previous level’s vocabulary while doing the current level’s radicals and kanji.
So radicals first, then kanji then apprentice all outstanding previous level vocab THEN start the second set of kanji.
You’re not racing to finish levels. Forget the stats. Forget the fact that kanji is the only indicator that you level up. A job half done isn’t done at all.
Basically stop avoiding the vocabulary and sit down and do it.
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I do radicals as soon as level up
Doing kanji lessons is my reward for finishing vocab levels
Not the fastest method but a method
I’ve been trying to get down to 0 available lessons before I level up each time. When I level up, I then do all the radical lessons, then all kanji lessons (I’ve been doing these all together and immediately upon leveling up), THEN I go back to doing vocab lessons (starting the next day). This means I’ll be doing the newly unlocked vocab for the previous level while working on the radicals and kanji for the current level.
I think the overlap is helpful as it sort of extends the more regular reviewing for the previous level a bit more and mixes stuff up with the current level, which is more challenging but I think results in better retention in the end (for me anyway).
To get to 0 lessons I look at what’s available after guruing the first batch of kanji and divide that by the number of days till I expect to level up. That’s been working out at around 20-25 vocab lessons per day and sometimes I’ll split them into two sessions to make it feel a little lighter.
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Do you have trouble with the kanjis at all ?
The purpose of the WK vocab is to learn the kanjis readings in different contexts.
If some kanji are difficult you should target the vocab lessons with the readings that cause you problem.
If you do not have problem with the kanjis then its relative importance is low, and it may be a better usage of your time to learn instead the vocab related to the rest of your practice.
Have you started reading yet ?
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happy to report that around 20 days later, I have completely caught up on my vocab and can finally do lvl 10 stuff yay!!!
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