I’ve been using WaniKani for around 3 days so far. However, I’m only about to reach guru on my radicals not kanji; I checked my stats and it seems I got 10/96 radicals wrong in my reviews. Is that why it’s taking me so long? I’ve heard that it usually take around 3 days to complete level 1; what am I doing wrong?
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3 days and some number of hours is the fastest you can reach level 2, not what I would necessarily say is the “usual” speed. If you got some radical reviews wrong, then yes, that would slow you down. If you’re new to kanji then I wouldn’t really be too concerned about exactly how long it takes. I know you’re probably excited to continue, but in the meantime there are other aspects of Japanese you can work on as well.
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Yes as Leebo said, for levels 1 and 2, the current system has it take 3 days and 2 hours if you do the reviews right as they pop up and are correct every time.
The next level always unlocks upon completion of all but 3 kanji. Until you get to that point, you will still be at level 1.
Also, if you are sad that it is to slow now, I have been going full speed, and have nearly 800 reviews like 2 days a week now. It speeds up.
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Take your time, the focus is to learn, not to get level 
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Indeed. Learning a language is a marathon, not a sprint. If you want to do ir really fast, then be prepared to spend A LOT of time. I’m taking my time. My goal is to have decent level in five years time. It took me quite a bit to reach a good level in English and it is much easier.
So enjoy while you are doing it, don’t get burned out.
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Yea I second this as well! I started out full speed ahead on WK back in October, but I soon realized if I were to keep up the pace, other aspects of the language would suffer like grammar study, reading, and listening. I still am moving at a good pace, about 9/10 days per level, but that pace is allowing me the time to focus on the many important things you need to do in order to become proficient in a language. I wouldn’t want to know 2000+ kanji and 6000+ vocabulary words and have no ability to glue them together into a sentence. In fact, encountering the kanji you learn here through SRS “in the wild” is very helpful in making them stick!
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Sorta related, i’m in the same boat with level two
I’m wondering where people find those level/time graphs I’ve seen around, of how long its taken to complete each level? Is it on our account somewhere, or can you only access it when you’ve progressed further?
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Haha yah, I probably am taking it a little too fast… I’m thinking about getting Genki, and maybe the book “Japanese for busy people” as a secondary book.
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I took 6 days and 6 hours according to wkstats, so don’t be worried if it’s only been 3 days. 
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You have to plug your API Key into this website: wkstats.com
@Adsf2342 I’m using Genki now! I am enjoying it. It is cumulative, so it builds on what you learned previously, and that is the way I like to learn. I have an italki teacher, but I think it can be used by a motivated self-studier.
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whats an api key?
Hey Idasaur! Go to your dropdown menu at the top right of your WK dashboard and click “API Tokens.” You can then generate a token and copy and paste it into wkstats. It’s a link that contains info from your WK progress and other supported websites and apps can use it to link to your WK account.
You can skip all of those extra permissions. I am not sure what they do honestly, someone else could explain it better, but the tokens will work. I use them for KameSame, wkstats, and for BunPro when I was using it before Genki.
Oh, I keep editing this, but I would be remiss if I didn’t link this thread for new users!
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The API refers to the interface between the backend and frontend of an application, such as WaniKani. As I’ve understood it, a developer will create their backend which handles databases, storage, certain functonality, etc whereas the frontend is what we interact with on the website. Frontend is also known as the client, and backend as the server. The backend engineer will develop the application programming interface (API) which is essentially a way for the frontend and backend to communicate in a preconfigured format, typically using files called JSON files. e.g. when you login on the website, the client sends a request to the server saying it’s you, and the server can respond with the appropriate data, based on what you want to do (reviews, lessons, etc). Another distinction is that the frontend application runs on your computer inside a browser, whereas the backend runs on another computer, somewhere else, that you are accessing via the internet.
When you generate an API token and give it wkstats, KameSame, or any other user-made website, you are essentially creating a key that they can send with their request to the WaniKani servers saying “Hey, I am allowed to request information about this user.” WaniKani’s servers can tell which user it is based on the token and supplies the given information as a JSON file. Wkstats’ website then renders the relevant information obtained from the backend on their client.
I might be wrong on some points, but this is my best guess based on my knowledge of this sort of things, which is not very much.
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Ah, but you have much much more knowledge than I do on the subject haha. Thank you for the explanation. I have a little better understanding of how it works now!
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Yeah, no problem. Websites that have users have APIs of some sort. For example, if you use Twitter, the website twitter.com you find using your browser is one frontend whereas the Twitter iOS/Android apps are two others. They all request information from the same backend (but might vary what they’re asking for based on which client you are using). If you ever used Discord, the creators of bots there have to create similar API tokens. Another interesting fact is that not all APIs are public. WaniKani’s API could be broader than we know, but third-party applications can only access portions of it.
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It depends on your pace, but if you’re trying to minimize time on level, most WK levels will take between 6 and 8 days. Levels 1 and 2 are exceptions, as are about 15 of the last 20 levels, those you can do in about 3 days and 10 hours (assuming you do all kanji lessons the hour you get them, review every time they come up, and get nothing wrong). Most people don’t do that. For me, levels 1 and 2 both took me about 6 days, and I averaged 8 for the rest of the levels.
But you can control your speed and your daily review count by managing how many lessons you do per day, and how quickly you do new kanji lessons for a new level. If you want to space it out and get fewer daily reviews, space it out over a few days and don’t do it all at once. If you want to do 7ish days per level, do all your kanji reviews immediately upon leveling up, and keep track of when they’re up to be reviewed, and do them right away. It takes a bit to figure out how it kind of works, but before level 3 you should have a pretty good idea what you’re doing.
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Quick question, about how long did it take hours to get to your current level?
I started in September 2019, but I wasn’t going max speed the whole way (mostly because I didn’t really get how, like in terms of minimizing time on level). I should be finishing level 60 next week. At my pace, I got about 200 reviews per day for most of the way, slowly ramping up as I went. You can go faster or slower if you want though.
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What do you mean by, “Mostly I didn’t know how” is there a better, and more efficient way to do WaniKani?
Time for a long-winded explanation of a routine I developed over a year and a half of slowly figuring out what’s important to finish on time (and I apologize in advance, I’m about to make it sound more complicated than it is):
My routine as of around level 25 on (which got me down to 7-8 days per level, down from the 9-12 I got before then) was doing all radical lessons the hour I level up, finishing kanji within the day, doing all radical reviews the minute they appear and trying not to get any wrong (you can track when you’ll get reviews for your current level items so you’re ready). There’s less stress on the kanji, but try to have them all no more than a couple days behind the radicals.
Then, do the second batch of kanji lessons that are unlocked by Guru’ing your radicals the hour you get them, and review them the hour they pop up until they’re guru. Make no mistakes, and you’ll finish in 6 days and 20 hours. The Tsurukame app on my phone reorders reviews so I get current level reviews first, so when I get those important reviews, I do them on my phone so I can finish them right away instead of waiting for them to randomly appear somewhere in my queue of 150+ reviews.
It definitely doesn’t need to be this complicated, there’s no need to think this far into it. I’ve just figured out over time which reviews or lessons are important for me to do right away and which I can wait on, and gotten it kind of down to a science. All this probably doesn’t make sense (and I apologize that I’m very long winded), but I hope this helps.
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