How do I level up faster? Is there anything else I can learn?

I know this question has been asked about a billion times, but most threads I found are old ones and I thought maybe something has changed.

Is there a userscript I could use to have more lessons?

I’m 14 days into WaniKani and only level 3. I do my reviews as soon as they come up and never delay them, but I still want to learn so much more and it’s not letting me :smiling_face_with_tear:

P/S: I thought of learning other aspects aside from kanji, but I’m relatively new so I’m not sure where to start.

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Check out the free online course irodori to complement your Wanikani studies.

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Are you doing the suggested 15 lessons a day, or all the lessons available? To find all the lessons, you’ll have to click the ‘Advanced’ button. If there’s nothing there you’ll just have to wait for new material to unlock, be patient, and start working on learning grammar in the meantime :slightly_smiling_face:

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Even old threads you have found can be good for other aspects aside from Kanji :smiley: e.g.

which is a pinned topic in Japanese Language > Resources


There are also some Master Guides to Learning Japanese, e.g. Tofugu (company behind WaniKani), Moe Way (this hover dictionary web extension)

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What are you interested in ? There’s a lot of possibilities to fill time.

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Yup! I do all reviews and lessons available to me :slight_smile:

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Are u doing reviews more than once a day? According to the Knowledge Guide:

To minimize the amount of waiting you do in the early levels, we recommend you do all your Lessons and Reviews as soon as they’re available. If you get things right, your first set of radicals will begin unlocking kanji in a few days.

Btw, the Review Forecast widget really helps you see when new reviews are coming up!

Also, the first few levels are veeeery slow, even if you’re doing all available lessons and reviews as soon as they show up! So there’s no need to worry :smiling_face:, it’s completely normal.

While you wait, you can study some grammar, learn more vocabulary or do something else. I personally like doing extra WaniKani reviews using third-party tools like Kaniwani and Kamesame.

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I am also level 3 and around 14 days. Lets level up together and keep each other accountable.

I usually watch beginner japanese youtube/netflix videos. I create 10 new flashcards in migaku/anki a day.

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Hey that’s awesome buddy :slight_smile: let’s do this together

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I think I just really like the culture and the language so I’m down to read any materials or consume any media

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This is normal for early WaniKani. Many people who have said the same thing find themselves underwater when they get their first round of 6 month reviews after doing all lessons/reviews daily, while some people have no issues!

I’ll echo what others have said: Find some other resources to supplement in the meantime, but don’t let yourself get too ahead and set yourself up to burn out. Language learning is a marathon, not a sprint.

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Tsurukame iOS app says I have 6 more days until I get to level 4. That is if I did every review right away.
Let’s go

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By the way there’s a userscript where we can see when others level up, if you’re interested it’s here. WaniKani Leaderboard

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I agree with what you said about it being a marathon and not a run, I’m just really excited haha since everything’s so new and fun. Although I definitely should slow down a bit or I’ll burn out

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are you on that leaderboard? wouldn’t the people who been using wanikani for years be on top of the leaderboard? I do like the idea of a leaderboard since I’m from duolingo and I participate in the duolingo diamond league leaderboard.

Is there a leaderboard for beginners like us who just started 2 weeks ago? meaning I like to only compete with like level 1- level 5 wanikani users.

Option 1: “I want to focus on reading first”

If you are interested in a particular piece what was really fun for me in the early stage is to decipher very slowly a book by extracting the raw text and then putting it in a custom jpdb.io deck (jpdb is a nice freemium SRS service that enable you to have your own custom vocab lists, parse text and is a good general vocabulary dictionary).

Beware this would expose you to A LOT of kanjis and vocab and may look like an insurmountable mountain. If that is the case wait for a while.

To choose a piece of media I would recommend to find the lowest level work on natively you are really interested in.

Option 2: “Wisdom of the ancients”
A few reads to help you define your strategy for the early steps:

Your learner profile will change extremely rapidly in the first months.

Have fun and if something doesn’t work, leaving it for later is always possible :grinning_face:

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These resources are super helpful, thank you so much. I’m really glad to be part of such a supportive community

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Shameless self-plug here: I soft-launched my application, KaniLeap, which lets you take more lessons than WaniKani allows (forum post here). If you want, I can send you an invite.

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I’m actually interested, please send me an invite?

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I have just learned that I can’t send messages on the forum, which is really unfortunate… :sob: If you could join the Discord linked in the forum post or share another way to contact you, that’d be great. Sorry for the inconvenience… :sweat_smile: