How long did WK take you? Poll Question for those who have reached Level 60

Mm, a bit of everything. I took intensive classes (those were a bit special though, because they were part of a research study from the education department of my university; it turned out I was in the control group, though, so it followed the “standard” approach) which brought me to N3. Then I took normal classes (from the same teachers, but it was way less intense than the control classes I had before somehow) completed with books like 新完全マスター and the like all the way to N2, then only self study with anki (following the Jalup advices but making my own cards) and skimming textbooks.
I also read a lot, mostly manga up to N2, with a shift to regular books when I got near N1. That was enough to get me over the threshold.
About one year after getting the N1, I was getting frustrated at not making progress at reading kanji, which is just when I got the email from WK.

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I expect to finish somewhere around exactly two years after I started. It looks like I might be on track for under 2 years, I have until June 26th. If this thread is still active when I get to level 60 I’ll answer the poll then.

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Started May of last year, varied my lesson intake for a while before I became comfortable enough for 15 a day, so I’d say May of next year I may be high 50s? I’m not sure but either way I’m not too bothered.

If I ever reach level 60, I expect to finish sometime around 2050. Maybe 2026 if I stop taking a yearlong “break” (actually just outright forgetting about Wanikani) every two levels.

(*insert spider georg meme here)

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In for the long haul (@team :snail:) probably about 6-7 years. I thought wkstats used to show your predicted finish time, must have been something else?

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Yes, back with the v1 version of wkstats you’d have a ‘projections’ page that would show when it thought you’d complete each level based on previous levels. It’s not working with the v2 version and rfindley has been very busy with other stuff, as I understand it, so it might be a while before it’s back.

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1 yr, ~4 mos. Closest choice was 1.5 yrs…

Wanted to summit on the anniversary, but without scripts it’s pretty much impossible. On reflection chasing that useless belt notch hurt my retention quite a bit :cherry_blossom:

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I’ve got the same question as @ekg

The level 60 lessons aren’t any different from the previous levels and you still have a long tail of items. Most estimates are about a year or so after stopping lessons for burning everything if you decide to continue using WK but many people, maybe even the majority, don’t bother to do so once they start focusing in other areas of Japanese.

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i think they’re just trying to give you a cutoff so you don’t start saying how long it took you to get everything burned or sum. by this they mean at master you have learned an item sufficiently

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Sure but I think it makes it harder to figure out a date rather than just asking for when you hit level 60.

Is it getting all level 60 items to Master level? What if you have leeches that stay for months? Is it 90% of level 60 items to master? Then it’s going to be accuracy based.

And then you have to figure out when that date was with a script since or go through the item screen after each review.

At least with something like just hitting level 60 you can just look at the level up date. Plus, that means no one who’s hit 60 in the last two months will have data for you.

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Took me 394 days. I began with spending about 15 minutes on reviews initially, ramping up to 60-70 minutes by the end, and roughly half an hour on 30 new lessons per day. I found that my progress was helped along a lot by outside learning. Particularly how to spot the transitive/intransitive verb in the pair and things like phonetic components. Once those things clicked, my accuracy shot up by 3-4% per day and really helped lighten the review load. If you can find a similar “click” moment, your 2-3 year goal is totally achievable if you try your best. Good luck

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yeah, sry i was just saying what i interpreted it as, i agree it’s a lot more difficult

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Nice Kenny Omega DP

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It took me a year and a half to gain access to level 60 and pass its lessons, but that was two years ago, and I haven’t finished Wanikani yet, as I still have around 150 leeches, mostly on Enlightened.

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Thanks. The issue is that I’m unable to spend as much time here during weekdays (as a busy working father) so I mainly do lessons on weekends and focus weekdays on just attempting to clear review piles (which isn’t always possible). My ‘click’ may be getting my Apprentice level lower and dealing more proactively with my leeches, but they are leeches for a reason and I’ve debated how I should address or ignore them with my time.

It’s just a rough guestimate. :wink:
I was wondering roughly what Denji was thinking, but yeah, some people (most?) by that point may not focus as much here…

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Indeed. I don’t have any goal to burn all items on WK.

giphy

Once you have burned maybe 80% of all items, there is little reason to continue using WK for the sake of it. What you haven’t burned are most likely leeches and those don’t get learned through SRS - you have to work on them separately.

In any case, the higher level on WK you reach, the less time you should be spending on WK alone. You should be reading, watching, and gaming instead to ensure you build deeper connections to the items WK teaches. And work on grammar and listening comprehension. All in all, it’s time to move on.

Hitting lv 60 is the final push to start preparing to move on to other things than SRS.

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Yeah, the efficiency of how much you’re learning drops off rather heavily around the 40s.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think it’s useful to finish WK, but I think you start getting more out of reading and grammar by that point.

And as much as I’m planning to eventually burn everything, I’m slowing way down on my pace since I don’t really have another level to chase. In a month or two I may just decided to stop WK and just continue reading and watching.

So I think a good metric for your poll is just hitting level 60. That’s easily verifiable.

Edit: Since you marked this as solution (thank you :blush:) I wanted to point out something @ekg brought up:

This is absolute truth. WK is the tutorial level. Time to get out there and start playing the game.

I honestly think you’ll get more out of WK than I did doing it that way. You have more time to spend learning grammar and comprehension. :smiley::+1:

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I am hoping for around May in 2022 but what I actually think is gonna happen will be around Jan of 2023.

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… I may end up being on the 4-year plan!

BUT

… I’ve made decent progress during the winter because I’ve been commuting by bus/train and reviewing during the day with my phone app has helped immensely…

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