How many new Kanjis/Vocab. do you learn per day?

WaniKani
#36

Something maybe worth thinking about:

As you go along in WK, not only do you learn more kanji and vocab, but you get better at learning it. And what I mean by that is that you start to get a feel for how the meaning of compound words derives from the component kanji and you also get better at recognizing when there is a phonetic radical (so you already know how to pronounce the kanji), and you just generally have more practice at memorizing kanji and japanese.
These effects make a big difference in the amount of new material that you can learn in a given time frame.
(This is why for example, each of the JLPT levels has about double the matierial of all previous levels in terms of kanji and vocab. it is assumed that you get about twice as efficient at learning japanese as you progress through each level. This is also the reason that japanese kids learn about double the total amount of kanji they know at each grade level)

So my point is don’t sell yourself short at level 5 and think that your current pace and difficulty is how its how its always going to be.

Just as an example, for me, when I do vocab lessons, I check if the word has the “expected” pronunciation and meaning (which they do 90% of the time). If so I just skip past it, with the expectation that I will never miss it in a review because it “works” exactly how I expect it to based on my current knowledge. I couldn’t have done that at level 5 but now can easily do it with most of my vocab items. So for each given level all I have to remember is the exceptions (which will be 2-5 items per level). So I can easily do 50 vocab lessons in 15-20 min.

So anyway, just wanted to offer a perspective. I think that as you progress, if you give yourself the chance to, you will find that you can exceed your own expectations as to the pace you can comfortably maintain…

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#37

Yeah it definitely gets easier. I recently reset and it almost feels like cheating - I took a whole year’s break from WK but I can still remember so much (the system works!). It’s a totally different experience so far - there’s no unfamiliar radicals/kanji during lessons so it’s mostly just relearning mnemonics (if I need to - some kanji are totally burned into my brain and there’s really no point).

I’m still not really planning WK out too much, beyond using the reorder script to smash out all of the radicals/kanji when they first appear, then vocab over the next few days (I am NOT going to leave vocab lessons too late this time!). Plus always doing reviews before any lessons.

I have a feeling this will come back to bite me later (I just had a review queue of 80 and I don’t even have any enlightened yet) but oh well. I’ve brought it down from 1000 before and know how painful and depressing that was, so I never want to let that happen again. I told myself I wouldn’t be all about fast levelling this time, but here I am reordering my lessons and compulsively checking the review timeline dashboard :laughing:

I think when I reach my old level I may change strategy and start doing smaller lessons…I think i’m a WK junkie…please send help!

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#38

It’s okay. I used to think I don’t have much time, but that’s not true - despite being busy working, I can do reviews without problem. In the train during commute, for example, I can hammer out like 100, which then takes roughly 40 minutes (because I’m slow on my phone), but that’s fine - nothing else worth doing while sitting (or standing) there anyway.

I think my limit of doability would be closer to 400-500, but I probably won’t keep that up, so if it gets too much, I’ll just stop doing new lessons and work on reducing the pile for a month or so.

Regarding reorder script: Almost everyone, including myself, seems to do them in the order radicals -> kanji -> vocab. Maybe it would be smarter to do vocab first, because it still belongs to the level before, and in the grand scheme of things, one hour delay should still not make a big difference.
The reason I think doing vocab first is, it puts you in flashcard mode, you’re already in the flow at the point when radicals and kanji come up. On the other hand, your brain is still fresh at the start of a session, so you might want to take a break after the vocab.
Maybe it balances out by itself.

#39

Yeah I started doing the vocab lessons first (which delayed my radical/kanji lessons) but then got caught in the ‘level up fast’ mode and reverted back. It seemed like a good idea as you’ll never have an ever growing bunch of vocab lessons if you are being slack and level up before doing the vocab lessons.

Keen to hear from anyone that does vocab lessons first and if it’s better.

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#40

I do a minimum of 20 vocab a day and all the kanji and radicals that are available. Except Sundays, Sundays are my level up day so I’m getting ~30 new items already. This means that I end up on 0 lessons on the Saturday usually before I level up so I rarely have backlog unless I miss a day - then I do an extra 5 lessons a day until I make up for lost time. It should be noted that I’m doing 7 day levels so if I do any less lessons I’ll end up with a huge backlog of lessons. I also probably spend a little longer on the lesson screen then most and that’s probably why I can do so many without problem.

Hope this helps :smile:

EDIT: I should mention to people reading through this that I’m in school still, I enjoy Japanese so my life literally consists of school and Japanese, along with all those good essential things like food.

#41

Yeah, I’m not telling to put a halt in the vocab lessons when a new level is reached, but to turn it down to 10 vocab itens perday and do the radical as quickly as possible and the kanjis a number you are confortable (me, 10 per day). After there is no new kanji or radicals, and you’re making them GURU to level up, you switch back to doing 20 vocab per day.

#43

Out of curiosity, are you able to keep your vocabulary lessons consistent or are you getting a backlog of vocabulary lessons as you level up? There are 100+ vocabulary words for every lesson and if you’re leveling up in 7 days and doing 9-20 vocabulary words a day, it seems that as you level your vocabulary will become more and more behind, which could mess up your kanji retention. Maybe I’m just dense, but I don’t see how getting to radicals/kanji quicker improves overall learning/retention.

#44

I learn everything in the learn queue as soon as it become available.

Currently I’m achieving 96% accuracy this way, if my accuracy was to drop below 90% I would likely slow down learning new items.

You need to find what works best for you. Just remember that more items means more reviews. I often wake up to a stack of 75+ reviews, but that is an ideal breakfast for me.

#45

Personally, I don’t mind plowing through 100 reviews at once, but I prefer to have the review load spread out evenly day-to-day.

I use the “ascending level then subject” lesson order and all lessons at once, except:

  • I don’t do more than 5-10 kanji lessons in one session
  • I don’t do more on-level lessons if I have 5 or more kanji that I haven’t gotten past apprentice 1

So on a good day, if I recall all of the kanji on the first review, then I can unlock everything in a few 4-hour intervals. On a bad day, if I can’t recall anything, at least I don’t have more than 5-10 new kanji to focus on. (In general I find radicals stupid and vocab easy, the big challenge is brand-new kanji.)

YMMV, of course.

Need an opinion on Lessons
#46

I’m in the do everything crowd myself. I can’t stand seeing numbers greater than zero up there.

#47

Greetings everyone. I’ve just started a few days ago and this thread has so far been the most interesting to me, as I was also curious how fast others were going. The impulsive need to compare oneself to others :slight_smile:

I’m currently living in Japan, but without a Visa, so I have to leave every 90 days. That’s fine, I visit friends back home and then return. I bet nobody can guess the city in Japan where I live :wink:

I’ve tried enrolling in language schools full time, but the pace is too fast for me! My current goal is to learn a lot of Kanji and volcabulary. Once I feel I have enough knowledge, then I will try full time school again.

It looks like I’m learning about 9 new Kanji+Volcabulary daily. I’m looking forward to plowing through 3, and unlocking the rest of the levels with a subscription so I can estimate how long it will take me at my current rates.

I am really pumped up about this service. It fits with my need to measure progress.

#48

Hi @tandeitnik, you will burnout if you study kanji/radicals more than you can handle in a day, especially once you reach higher levels, unless you are not doing anything in life but study, sleep, eat, poop and repeat. I have a day job, some hobbies and a family to enjoy. My advice is to keep a standard phase. In my current level, I aim for 15-20 Lessons and 150 Items reviewed per day. Don’t compare yourself with other learners who can finish a certain level for 6 days. Some of them really don’t absorb the lessons well. Supplement your kanji learning by reading Japanese Graded Readers.

#49

Well, let’s do some math, I’m leving up in a roughly 8-9 days cycle.For 3 days I learn the new kanji and keep my vocab down to 10 itens and, for the rest of the 5-6 days, it goes back up to 20. So it’s 10x3 + 5x20 = 130 to 150 vocab itens per level. So no, I’m not lagging behind, but when I’m leving up, say level 7 (i’m currently level 7, going to 8, the level 6 that appears next to my avatar is wrong) going to 8, I’m doing the vocab for level 6 - which is preety good, because it’s helping me to remember the kanji of the previous level. Tomorrow I’ll level up to level 8, but today I already learned some vocab from level 7 (today the list for level 6 ended and a couple of itens from lvl 7 appeared). So the pace is right! The backlog matches the previous level. Tomorrow I go to level 8, I will rush through the radical (I don’t count them as itens, they are too easy) and I’ll be already learning the vocab from lvl 7.

#50

Thanks for answering my question. That’s pretty cool. Your pace/system is clever and keeps you moving through. I saw some people with hundreds of lessons so I wondered about that and asked.

ETA: I find the radicals kind of hard to be honest, because they’re so random. My accuracy for vocab and kanji meaning is higher than that for radicals.

#51

Yeah, I think everyone has weak points… I don’t know, I just find the radicals easy to remember. There are no readings, it’s just a word that is linked with the image. Yeah, sometimes it’s needed a lot of imagination (like the radical PIG from level 7), but normally those are so absurd that they become easy just for the oddness. Besides that, if I get a radical wrong, I usually press the ignore button because I don’t see any advantage to letting them take more time to become guru.

#52

When I first started I did all my lessons for WaniKani as soon as they came up.
Then I realised I was hit with the reviews all at once and they were incredibly hard to remember.
Now I try to space them out by doing 5-10 every hour and not all 50-60 as soon as I get them.
I usually knock them all off in a day or two still. I hate having pending lessons and reviews.

#53

Just finished level 7, 9 days in total. Finished it with 105 vocab lessons opened, all from level 7, which is OK, I’ll learn them while I’m doing level 8, so I’ll be training the content of the previous level. Just finished with today’s lessons: did all the new radicals (15), plus 4 new kanji (starting tomorrow I’ll do 10 per day) and 11 vocab.

I’m really happy with this pace, like that it’ll take me 18 months in total to complete WK, which is preety good for me.

#54

Good job! Also, welcome, I’m glad to have you join me in level 8. :slight_smile: 18 months is really good. I’m trying to have a similar pace.

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#55

I find doing 15-30 lessons a day is a nice steady pace. Depending on my mood of course. Sometimes my day job leaves me a little more drained then normal. Or if life comes up or friends or blah blah. Of course, I’ll run through all the kanji and radicals as soon as they pop up.

As of now though I’m enjoying going fast. I’ll probably slow down a bit once I get a little higher and start injecting some grammar into my studies as well.

Edit: Also, hello level buddies!

#56

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