I always do all the radicals & kanji as soon as I level up and then I try to get in 10-15 new vocab each day.
I also do about 20 new flashcards each day on an Anki 10k deck, so I don’t feel too bad if my vocab on WK is a little behind since I am supplementing it elsewhere.
Is it bad I haven’t really thought about a target level for the year?
After reading all your great advice though, I’m gonna try bumping it up to 20 a day to see how I fare (the problem is my memory is horrible so I usually need 1 or 2 more reviews after to start getting them right).
EXCITING STUFF THOUGH I think getting to 15 by the end of the year is a reasonable goal for me.
I’m using Anki as well for some extra vocab! How long did it take you to get to level 6?
I’ve been here for a few months, and I’m trying to go as fast as possible. I did know some kanji and a fair bit of the vocab by “ear” in the first ten lessons, and have been taking a class in Japanese along with doing WaniKani.
All that to say - I do every lesson as soon as it is available, and do around 80% of the reviews as soon as they are available (some I end up doing late, because, life). This means I’ve been leveling up an average of every 7 and a half days. This pace has been working great for me - but it does mean I “cheat” a bit with the new kanji now that I’m here in level 20, and while they are apprentice, look at them before answering. This is because I find the vocab a much easier way for them to stick in my mind, and by the time they are guru-ed, I’m ready to combine them with others I know. At early levels, this was easier to do, as I knew more vocab words that already used those kanji. I’ve also been doing heavily dictionary dependent reading and translation for a while, and the faster I can get away from that, the better.
Two things I’d say - get on the KaniWani and WaniKani Statistics API sites ASAP, too! KaniWani drills vocab, but in reverse (gives you English and asks for hiragana), and the statistics site helps you track your progress very effectively.
My average level-up time is about 11 days, so maybe 2 months?
I have reset my account so I did have prior knowledge, so that may or may not have helped. I was about level 15 before the reset iirc. Life is more stable now, so hopefully no more resets for me! Haha
At what level were you able to start reading (even at a dictionary dependent level)? Also, any personal recommendations for learning grammar? I’m kinda bouncing all over the place with resources for grammar at the moment.
Also I got on KaniWani and the stats website! KaniWani really showed me what I don’t know LOL so I’ll be using that to know both sides. The stats website is really interesting too! Good to know where on the JLPT I am haha
Thanks for all the help!
WOOO for no more resets! And 11 days is really good!! Hopefully I can see more of my own stats when I finally get past level 2 lmao
Early levels I did as many as possible to get it going. Now, at level 5, I’m pacing the lessons a little. Someone said to keep your apprentice items around 100 items, and that works well for me. Sometimes it gets closer to 130, and that’s doable too.
I recommend using the Genki textbooks to study grammar. Its a very popular beginning textbook.
I would also highly recommend getting the HelloTalk app and talk to natives! Even if you don’t know much, you can just say simple things like 好きな音楽は何ですか or 猫は好きですか etc and see all the different responses! I think seeing real life usage helps with learning grammar.
I personally do all of my lessons as soon as they appear. I spend about 20-30 minutes every morning doing my reviews and every couple of days a new set of lessons will take ~30 minutes. Occasionally it could take me a bit longer to get through my reviews, or I’ll do a review session in the evening if I have spare time. I find it pretty manageable.
WK already does a pretty good job of throttling you and forcing you not to go too fast, as long as you keep up with your reviews. Many of the stories of people getting overwhelmed happen when someone doesn’t do their reviews for some reason for a number of days, and the reviews all pile up and feel overwhelming. In studying kanji, like learning most things, consistency is key.
I’d say try doing all of the lessons as soon as you can and see if it’s too fast for you. If you get to level 5-8 and find you have too many reviews every session, then you can scale back your lessons and your number of reviews will taper off after a week or two.
Ooh, HelloTalk seems interesting, I downloaded it so I’ll try it out!
And for Genki, are the textbooks enough or do I need all the supplemental audio / answer keys as well? Or can I find these stuff online?
I can usually go on WK a couple times a day, so I guess it would be a good to get an idea of how much of a stress doing every lesson would be for me. Hopefully it’ll go well!!! Thank you 
I’ve actually been “”“reading”"" since before I started WaniKani. I started with Japanese by using radicals and what I did know to transcribe things I was interested in reading, then used an online dictionary to work through the text. Mostly this was comics, and what I’ve been doing for a while is Takarazuka musical scripts. I find these the best to work with as a new learner, as the images and stage work give a huge set of context, as opposed to plain text.
Hence my desire to really up my kanji knowledge, as it makes transcribing wayyy easier. Though if you wanted to go that route, kanji reading software like Yomiwa is useful ^^. I think all this helped me get a better feel for kanji, too, as learning the conventions and starting to recognizing radicals is also a first step.
For grammar, the Human Japanese app is nice and what I used, and then I took a class that used the two Genki books, and now Intermediate Japanese
I personally just use the textbook, but it is highly recommended to have the audio etc as well. It can be “found” online.
Of course, do as many as you feel comfortable.
I usually do only ten per session, so i don’t get slammed with a ton of reviews all at once, but I also do reviews 3-4 times a day (before work, during lunch, after work, and before bed).
I usually look at the number of items per level, divide that by number of days I want to take to level up (the quickest is 7 days), and make sure I do that number of lessons per day (similar to @polv ), except i don’t do any pre-study.
Use lesson re-order to do all radicals first, and I personally have a hard time doing all the kanji at once (definitely prestudy if you plan to do that), so I just make sure I get the kanjis done before I guru the radicals.
By spreading out your lessons, you maintain a more steady level of apprentice items (if you worry about that kind of thing). With this method, my apprentice level is almost always around 90.
Haha I’ll try to scavenge it up somehow…, I’ve been using Human Japanese and I’m thinking of buying it to start, and then move onto Genki.
Do all of them in one sitting while wearing a very sturdy helmet and maybe your head will endure and not explode.
This. This was what I was looking for.
I use Pimsluer. I think the first 10 lessons are free.
As time goes on, the number of daily reviews will go up. It takes a while to process newly presented items through to burned. That being the case, it soon becomes more about managing reviews than lessons. Kanji, primarily, and radicals to a lesser degree drive progress. If you find you have a manageable number of reviews, do all (or as many as your are comfortable with) your lessons, especially if Kanji or Radicals are presented. If you have a larger than you like number of reviews, hold off on lessons where Kanji or Radicals are waiting so you can focus on lowering your review count. This will slow your progress, but there’s no point in piling on reviews you can’t get to. You’ll get a feel for what works for you in a few more levels.