How much time do you spend on a level?

I think it all depends on the person. I just subscribed after finishing the three free levels. I think I averaged about a week per level for the free stuff (although I did drag out level 3 a bit to get as much for free as I could, lol). It helps, though, that I already knew a lot of the kanji covered in those levels from other study methods I’m using, so the biggest hurdle there was the vocabulary. I suspect that once WaniKani surpassed the N5 material I already know, my progress will be significantly slower, especially because I have two small children and a certification exam I also need to study for in order to keep my job. I will say that I feel like WaniKani’s method leads to faster learning and retention than other study methods I’ve used, but at the end of the day learning a language (especially one as complex as Japanese) is a marathon, not a sprint. You might learn a lot in a short amount of time, but if it’s too much to retain long term then it’s ultimately fruitless.

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One to two months per level is a comfortable, sustainable pace for me. Trying to go any faster just ends in tears and a reset.

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As long as it takes.

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Hello,
my median is 7 days and 10 hours. I have to say I am not completely new to Japanese, but I didn’t practice it for almost ten years. I’m using WaniKani to refresh my memory of kanji (I did Heisig back in the days).
In parallel I also do sentences in Anki.
screenshot_20200927_193809

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Average: 7 days, 7 hours, 18 minutes
Median: 7 days, 9 hours, 46 minutes

Well hey, hi, howdy @rmiller1656 and @Ni730w1, since those were your very first posts, you get one of these…

\textcolor{pink}{\huge \textsf{WELCOME! ^-^}}

welcome gif - crabigator

Take the time to check out the FAQ and GUIDE if you haven’t already.

There’s also a lot of good stuff on the forum to help you, like:

The Ultimate Guide for WK
The Ultimate Additional Japanese Resources List!
The New And Improved List Of API and Third Party Apps

I hope your Japanese learning journey goes well and that you enjoy your time with us on the forums.

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This is me. I’m spend time studying every day but I usually don’t add words to my deck unless I get the apprentice below 50 just because I don’t like getting swamped with Wanikani.

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I consider learning kanji just a fun side project: was really pumped up about learning Japanese about 10-15y ago, then it kinda waned, then I started studying Spanish, move to LatAm to be with my SO and about 1y ago decide to start learning Chinese (with the idea that it would later on help with Japanese with knowing characters) but after a while struggling a bit with hanzi and finding out about wanikani I decided to use WK to help with mnemonics for hanzi and in the end I dropped Chinese and decided to go back to Japanese. I started with strictly 10 lessons per day, then had couple of weeks of fallout and I came back and started with 5 new items and then was slowly increasing it to 7 currently. This means it takes roungly 25-30 days for a level, but I usually get >80% on review (and consider I’m doing it mostly as a break from work on an hourly basis I’d say that’s quite a good score).

Bottomline - don’t stress about it and do it in a way that let’s you get something from it :slight_smile:

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Let’s just say I’m stuck here… I can’t bring myself to down this. And the last few levels were going so well :sob:

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7 days, 14 hours, 16 minutes, but I’m going to try to get myself to slow down as I just started burning this week, which adds a lot of extra review items to the already large daily pile.

I also do Kaniwani for all Guru’d items, so it’s getting close to a second full time job. I have to slow down so I can focus more on input.

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This is good to know! My average is 11-12 days and I assumed 7 days is the norm based on some posts I’ve read here. So for level 7 I did my best to level up 7 days, I was able to but it stressed me out quite a bit tbh

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how long do people spend on a level?

Go at the speed that works for you. This isn’t a contest it’s all about you learning and enjoying the process.

Well, maybe not ENJOYING the process, maybe more like not hating it and keeping at it…

My typical level up is 8-10 days. I zero my reviews every day. Lessons I try to space out. I know I can nicely learn and remember about 15 at a time unless it is radicals, in which case I will knock them all out since it is easier remembering one part vs the 2 needed for Kanji/vocab.

I knock Kanji out the day they open, at least the first and second passes. If I can’t get the Kanji to step 3 before a day is out, I will do the lessons for it the next day.

Either way though, welcome to the community, welcome to WK, and above all, enjoy your LEARNING experience!

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Right now the speed for any given level seems to depend on how quickly I catch up on all available vocabulary from the previous level to get the radicals done.

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Around 16-18 days per level for me. And even that is a demanding speed for me…

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No, as I mentioned earlier they are outliers. You are good, take it slow and make sure you don’t burn out. Slow and strategy like a turtle.

Nice username :smile: I presume you are a One Piece fan :love_you_gesture:t2:

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Thanks, and yesss! I’m loving absolutely loving the wano kuni arc

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Now I’m here with 81 review coming until the evening, which I will clear after work.

Wanikani is really ruthless, I missed just one busy review day and it piled up like crazy. I could barely keep up with the new incoming reviews, let alone get the overall pile down.

Now I’m kind of back on track, but that’s really scary.

Don’t be like me and take on too many lessons at the same time. This was my last level:

Learn from my mistake!

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What happened? Was it just a traffic jam of reviews? Or you had to take some time to catch up on the vocab lessons?

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I’ve found that 3 kanji + 10 vocab per day is a sweet spot for me. It keeps me at 11-15 days per level without an avalanche of reviews. When I tried to do all the lessons at once or big chunks of 40 lessons per day I ended up burning out. I’ve already reset twice, and I’m not letting it happen again!

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