Hi all, currently beginning wanikani and loving it.
Quick question tho
Sometimes i’m getting between 50-100 new lessons to do, especially when I unlock vocabulary from kanji. And I know that if I do 50 new lessons one-shot, there is no way i’ll remember it all and i’m bound to miss recalls or meaning or whatever. So i do perhaps 10 to 15 new lessons a day to keep it managable. Do you think it’s good? Too much?? not enough??
I know it’s kind of a personnal question and i can do what i feel confortable to do but was wondering how many new lessons per day can you guys handle to be proficient?
Thx for the input!
6 Likes
I do all of them at once, but a lot of people advocate setting a specific number to do every day that you are comfortable with. Usually I hear numbers in the 10-20 range.
17 Likes
It depends on what kind of person you are. Like Kumi, I do mine all in one go as soon as I get them, but many people prefer spreading out their work load (quite sensibly). 15 lessons a day sounds like a good amount, but you can adjust that over time if you feel like it’s too little or too much. I wouldn’t recommend dropping below 10 a day though if you want to get to level 60 within the next 3 years (I haven’t done the math though, just a guess 
).
You may also be surprised with how many lessons you can handle, especially if you use the mnemonics to help you out. When I started I thought it was ridiculous that they expected me to remember even 20 items, and now I have no problem doing 50+ in one go. It all depends on the person though. 
6 Likes
Depends on the type of lessons.
-
Radicals
- No reading to learn
- I do them all at once
-
Kanji
- New readings + new characters
- I do 10-15 a day, but not in one sitting
-
Vocab
- Depends on the amount of new readings
- I do up to 25 a day, when there are no new readings at all
18 Likes
Is it preferable on the long run to do al lessons and miss a bit of meaning reading at the start because you cannot handle them all. Or doing them 10 at a time but getting every answer good?
1 Like
I do the same as Kumi, but I think in general, like mentioned, most people who spread them out a bit more tend to have a better time it seems.
EDIT: For these 3 day 11 hour levels, I have been switching my system up because it is tiring. So instead, for these levels, I use a re-order script and do all the kanji and radicals right away and then on another day I do the vocab. On the other levels though, I did them all at once because it was not as tiring then.
2 Likes
You can experiment! You can try out doing more, using the mnemonics to help out and if that’s too much, try doing slightly less. You’re not expected to get 100% in all your reviews. As long as you’re getting an average of 70%+, I’d say that’s a good sign of retention.
3 Likes
How to decide how many items per day one should do.
You’ll need to use the reorder script for this.
There’s 3 different types of items:
- radicals (Group 1)
- kanji (Group 1)
- vocabulary (Group 2)
General rules:
Divide average number of vocab in a level by the number of words you can learn per day while maintaining an efficiency around 85% to 95% in reviews (100% means it’s too easy for you and that you can learn more). Example:
Your 85 to 95% number is 10 words/day.
130 words per level/10 words a day = 13 day level.
This vocabulary will be spread throughout the level.
Now let’s think about the other 2 types of items:
- Radicals should not be a problem. Even in higher levels, you’ll easily get less than 10 radicals per level.
- Kanji come in two batches: the ones available right after leveling up and the ones unlocked after guru’ing the radicals.
With this last point, you can then divide each level in two phases:
- Radicals + 1st batch of kanji (Phase 1)
- 2nd batch of kanji (Phase 2)
Again, vocabulary will be spread throughout the level.
Assuming that the time spent guru’ing radicals + 1st batch of kanji = guru’ing 2nd batch of kanji:
13 days per level give you 6 and a half days to finish each phase. This means that:
- You’ll have to do the radicals right away after leveling up.
- You’ll have to spread the first batch of kanji throughout the first 6 and half days.
- You’ll have to do the 2nd batch of kanji around the day you unlocked them.
- All the vocabulary will be spread throughout both Phase 1 and 2.
Obs:
- All numbers are based on my initial example of 10 words a day. You should adapt the number based on your abilities, routine and goals.
- The number of vocab per level decreases the higher the level is. 130 words/level was an example.
Find the numbers that work for you 
Eventually, you’ll be able to have an organized routine on WK in terms of how your progress should look like
11 Likes
I recently realized that if I was to continue doing just 5 a day (except for radicals) it would take me forever to complete. I’ve never learned so fast before so this change in pace has thrown me off and will certainly be a challenge.
Of course, I never started knowing that I wouldn’t face a tough challenge.
Personally I do:
- Radicals in one batch when I level up
- New kanji the next day
- New vocab in two batches over the next couple of days
- The mid-level set of kanji as soon as they appear
- Remaining vocab over the next three days
There’s always a bit of a dump of vocab at the end of a level though. So far I’ve been taking about 8 days to level up, and I find it pretty comfortable. But as UntitledName says, you should just see what works for you! Lots of people do a specific number of lessons per day (say 10 - 30), and I’ll probably slow down in a couple of months.
The problem with doing them all in one massive batch is that they’ll all come up for Guru, Master etc. reviews together again in the future. If that falls at the same time as a load of new Apprentice items you learnt it’ll add up to a lot all at once. But… you’ll end up with loads of reviews at some point anyway ^^’
5 Likes
Man, I see you everywhere on here. You sure are dedicated and love to help, I appreciate that! 
Edit: missed “where” on “every”
4 Likes
When I was at lower levels, I did all my lessons at once. It didn’t become a problem until those massive sessions started coming back for master/enlightened reviews on top of all the guru/apprentice stuff. I felt like I was getting hammered, so I stopped doing all my lessons at once. Now, I sort of unscientifically meter them out based on what my apprentice count is (max for me is ~125), how many old reviews are coming up within the next couple days, and how much time I’ll have over those next two days (when those new items will be at the critical apprentice stages). If I’m, say, going into a weekend, I’ll do more lessons a day (up to 30) because I know I’ll have time to do the reviews as they come (and not have 100+ reviews buildup over the course of a day). If it’s the middle of the week and I know my days are going to be busy, I only do 5 or 10 lessons in the morning so that I don’t have so many reviews waiting for me when I get off work. Anyway, kind of a complex system and probably not the most efficient 
or scientific way to do it, but I think my point is that how many lessons you do at a time kind of depends on how much time you’ll have to do the reviews and how willing you are to let your review queue build up.
5 Likes
I used to do them all at once, but that became too much around Level 12. Now I do them when I feel like it. Basically when my mind is clear enough and I have the spare time, I do maybe 10-15 lessons. Don’t worry about lessons stacking up so much. You aren’t in a hurry to do them, as long as you do your reviews on time you’re good. Just find your own speed.
Hey, we’re all in this together I appreciate your kind words though! Hope the text wasn’t confusing, since I wrote it in a hurry.
7 Likes
Per a day isn’t really a good measurement, really you should be doing it based on how many apprentice items you have active to keep from getting overwhelmed. I personally find around 120-130 apprentice items seems to be my sweet spot (unless I have radicals, then I’ll push it to ~140 for the radicals then drop it back to 120s once I clear them out).
Right now it runs me around a 9-10 day level up period, without using any scripts with a 90% correct ratio. The main reason I level about 9-10 days is because I will split up the kanji after clearing out the radicals for a day or two. If I tried to push the post radical kanji as soon as they unlocked, I could level every 7-8 days, but started to get overwhelmed, 9-10 was much more controllable.
3 Likes
Or my lesson filter script.
For what it’s worth, I do 12 lessons a day - 3 kanji and 9 vocab (when available). Plus I do all radicals the first day (there aren’t many radicals at higher levels). This let’s me level up in about 14 days.
4 Likes
My approach on hitting a new level (using the reorder script) is:
-
Radicals immediately, no reason not to and they let you open the second kanji batch faster.
-
Kanji in batches of five whenever I feel like I can stomach them. I try to get through the initial available kanji batch within ~3 days of hitting a new level so I can stick to <10 day levels. The easier a time I have coming up with good mnemonics, the quicker I’ll tend to take new kanji batches.
-
Vocabulary depends on how many I have, and what they are. If I do a batch of vocab lessons and it’s mostly nouns or adjectives I might go through 10-25 at a time, but if it’s a lot of verbs (which are the worst) I might only do 5 and not be in the mood to look at any more for a little while. I really do try to finish all vocab lessons before I hit the next level, but sometimes I don’t manage it.
I hit level 28 1d15h ago, and have so far done 20 of the 29 initially available kanji. I hope to have all 29 out of Lessons by the end of day 3 (keeping in mind that I sometimes slow down a bit on the weekends). I guess somewhere around there or shortly after I should guru this level’s radicals, which will open up the final 5 kanji on this level, which I’ll try to do within a day of them opening up.
2 Likes
I don’t include a daily amount of kanji because:
- Every day your learning efficiency is different.
- Kanji are harder to learn than vocab (considering that you learned the vocab’s kanji well).
This allows the user to have some flexibility For example, I normally spread the 1st batch of kanji until the day the radicals get guru’d. However, yesterday I just decided to do them all at once and it went well.
Just felt like adding this detail
2 Likes
Since I’ve started going as fast as I can, I do 10 vocabs in the morning and 10 vocabs in the evening. If any radicals or kanji get unlocked I do them right away in addition.
How do you handle all of those readings? I remember you said you don’t use mnemonics right? So what is your procedure? 