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.
Contrary to what someone said, you don’t have to do all the new kanji upon level up right away - just the new radicals. But you DO need to have done them by the time the radicals get guru’d at the latest (if you are trying to minimize level up time).
First few levels are easier and paced differently, you need to go through a few levels and several weeks before you get a credible idea of what you can and want to handle.
For the past 5 months, I’ve done 20 lessons or more per day with only 2 days being exceptions (90% of time 20 lessons, 10% 25 or 30). I essentially level up the fastest you can without making some drastic changes (min. time is 6 days 20 hours, My avg. is 7 days 20 hours, but it’s been on a downward trend for months) like setting alarms to wake me up for reviews in the middle of the night. Also I do some reviews in bathroom at work and at lunch, but obviously can’t always stop what I’m doing for reviews).
The 20 lesson per day also basically ensures that your vocabulary will never be more than maybe a half level behind, and you can do 25/30 for a day or two to catch up. Some people abuse the reorder script and fall drastically behind on vocab, but if you are consistent, you can still level up quickly and not fall behind.
tl;dr You get out what you put in. “Wanting” to level/learn quickly isn’t enough - have to be willing to put the time and effort in to match it.
Also, I wouldn’t do what someone else said earlier about his looking at the kanji before review. Putting quotes around the word cheating doesn’t make it better. It’s possible to just reinforce through vocab, but you will learn the vocab much easier and overall have a firmer grasp of the knowledge if you don’t cheat yourself.
When I got to about level 15, the kanji lessons and reviews (for the 4 and sometimes 8 hour intervals) did get a lot harder. At first I just started to spend much more time on the lessons, but then I followed some advice that said to spend a reasonable amount of time on the lessons, then after the quiz, wait about 10 minutes and quiz yourself on what you just learned. It might be surprising how much you can’t remember even though you just did it. That post-lesson review skyrocketed my accuracy, and also doesn’t really mess with the SRS. I’d just be wary of reviewing more than 20 or 30 mins after the lesson, especially right before the review.
The post-lesson review is actually a really good idea, I’ll try that after my next lessons! I do forget them very quick so this could actually be the best solution for me.
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