How to deal with all the new lessons

[HaseebYousfani]

Hello everyone, first time poster, new to wanikani.

So ever since getting to level 2, I know it’s kind of sad I’m already struggling, but I got 80 + lessons or so right off the bat and I haven’t done them all yet. It’s my third day of level 2 and I’m at 54 lessons, I don’t plan on doing anymore for now, it’s too much for me and I can’t pass these reviews because there’s just too much at once. Just wanted to know if it’s normal to just put off the lessons and focus on the ones you already have in front of you. Or should I just do all my lessons in one go and do the reviews after that?
These vocabs have like 3-4 different ways to say them with the kanji in it and I forget the mnemonics sometimes, it’s just really daunting. Is it alright to be spending this much time on level 2, what I’m assuming to be easy, level 1 was actually very easy for me and it’s just a huge contrast. How long did it take you guys to get past this level?

Sorry for so many questions, I guess level 1 made me think that I’d be able to get through all the levels with the same ease.

[Epona]

Don’t worry HaseebYousfani. In my experience it takes a while to get used to WK and getting your brain all geared up to remember things using this new technique! And a good foundation is the way to start isn’t it. So don’t beat yourself up so early on, just relax and let the SRS help you. Make sure you make good mnemonics if you don’t use the WK ones suggested.
You already seem to have a good idea of what’s too much / stressing you out - self awareness is a very good thing. Do a few more lessons when you feel your brain is ready for them. Most people wouldn’t do all their lessons at once (far from it). Most people would just do a few every day. (I try to keep my apprentice about 100-110 so sometimes I don’t even do any lessons. But I always try to finish my day’s reviews).
Don’t be daunted. Things will get easier as you get used to making mnemonics. Also once you see / hear some things you recognise from WK “in the wild” you will feel encouraged and that will help too.
There are some tricky things in the first few levels (I still can’t shake a few of them!). But soon you will see them repeated in future vocab, and that really helps cement them.
Keep on persevering! We all have your back! Good luck!

[jprspereira]

You don’t have to do all lessons in one go. Most people spread them throughout the days and only do between 10-20 lessons/day.

You might want to read my guide for Wanikani for some useful advice (mainly chapters 1 to 8).

My Journey of 368 days (+ The Ultimate Guide for WK )

The Ultimate Guide to Wanikani Become the best version of your Wanikanian self. For newbies: Please read the WaniKani User Guide first before reading this. WK’s User Guide teaches you the very basics. My Guide turns you from a newbie with basic knowledge to a master. However, first, you need the basics. This Guide is really longgggggggg. You can read it all in one go, but there’s no need to if you don’t want to. Think of it as the place to come to when in doubt/need of help. Thanks …

[lemke]

Lessons are item you are allowed to study, not lessons you have to study.

If it is too much for you, just don’t do them right now.

[mwmanus]

Personally, i just do my lessons gradually and at my own comfortable pace.

its not really a race to get to the finish line, so don’t try to cram all the new information in at once, because you WILL forget a lot of it if you do.

If i have about 10-15 minutes to just sit down and learn, i do maybe 5 lessons at a time and move on with my day. I may do that about 2-4 times a day, and if i have a little extra time, say a 30 minute lunch break at work, and the previous 5 lessons were easy to remember or words i already knew, then i might do another set.

I always put my reviews first though, if i have any reviews at all, i’ll get through those before i do new lessons, and if reviews take up most of my free time, then i just don’t do any new lessons. And if i somehow end up with more than 30 reviews at once, say after waking up from a night of sleep, i’ll only do as many as time will allow, like i said before, its not a race, you will forget and struggle a lot if you try to rush through all of these

Just work at your own comfortable pace and you’ll get to the other side eventually.

Stress can also actually cause memory loss and affect your ability to retain new information, so another thing is to not stress yourself out or try to do your lessons or reviews while stressed, especially if its about the number of reviews and lessons you have

Level 1 and 2 were a breeze for me personally, but i had already started learning japanese before ever starting wanikani, so i got through both of those levels in a matter of a few days or couple of weeks, but after level 4 or 5 i think, i started taking a lot longer to finish all of the lessons, but i also took days off of learning anything new for personal reasons, mostly stress related, but also just taking days to relax, as well as taking time to learn from other sources, wanikani isn’t the only place to learn, but its been a very valuable asset for sure.

[slerched]

You just started, so follow advice to keep things more leisurely, or do things all crazy like and go top speed. Your choice.

As someone who went full throttle in the beginning, I can tell you that it isn’t for the weak hearted. I also regret trying to go at break neck speed.

Things to remember:

1. Every lesson you learn today will come back in 4 months as it progresses through the SRS stages. This is important because if you do 190 lessons in a day, with the correspondingly crazy amounts of reviews and manage to get them all correct each time, 4 months later ALL of those come rushing back while you are still running full speed through WaniKani levels. Waking up one morning after zeroing out your reviews to 275 new reviews is horrifying.

2. Try to keep Apprentice items at or around 100. If you have 100 Apprentice items, hold off on new lessons. You can probably comfortably deal with 115 or so, and maybe brave up to 150 but you need to find the number that works best for you. Apprentice items are hateful in that there are 4 SRS stages to them and if you fail, you see them again fairly quickly. This means if you do 20 lessons now, level up on schedule, in 4 days they will move to Guru. But as you fail them, they will seep back into all of the regular reviews you are doing for other items. It can become exhausting.

3. Don’t be afraid to slow down. Even if you have 190 new lessons, if you aren’t comfortable with where you are, don’t learn anything new until you get your feet back under yourself. While there are people who want to boss rush WaniKani and get the coveted World Speed Record for Kanji Learning, you probably are here to learn, not rush. Find the pace that works for you.

4. Train your brain to ignore the number of lessons. Focus on only doing new lessons when you are comfortable doing so and are prepared to see them multiple times over the course of 4-5 (or more if you get them wrong) days.

5. Don’t be afraid to fail. It’s easy to cheat and move things to the next stage but that isn’t learning. I am not saying you did or will cheat, but it can be tempting. The point is to learn, not get to the end of WaniKani fastest. Or if that is your goal, feel free to open Jisho and copy/paste all you like

6. Never, ever be afraid to enter the forums screaming! We are here for you. When things look grim, when you can’t face down those similar looking kanji… pay us a visit! Wherever you are in your journey, someone’s been there and felt your pain. Even if you just want to enjoy the gentle embrace of a poll while ignoring your reviews, we are here.

7. Never give up. You may go slow but you WILL learn if you stick to it. If you don’t, you won’t learn obviously.

In the end, that’s a lot of words to say… GOOD LUCK, try to enjoy the journey, find your pace, and please visit us.

[slerched]

Lessons are item you are allowed to study, not lessons you have to study.

NO! GET IN THERE AND GET THOSE LESSONS FINISHED! NOW!

Kidding.

If it is too much for you, just don’t do them right now

This feeling never goes away. It does lessen and start to grind down over time but even today when I level up I feel this shot of excitement that I’m leveling up, only to fall into the gentle horror of… 50-160 new lessons!

Then I pick myself up, get back on the horse and keep on trekking!

[HaseebYousfani]

Thank you everyone for responding, I really was kind of stressed looking at it before, but you guys definitely helped alleviate it. As much as I’d like to get Wanikani done as soon as I can, I’ll just try not to worry about what’s coming.

Great community you have here

[Beyond_Sleepy]

I’m just going to add my two cents now:)

I try to do at least 20 lessons before noon, and I never do lessons after noon because the first two review cycles come after 4 and 8 hours (so twelve hours) and after that they keep coming at the same time of day unless you delay doing them when they come up. So by getting lessons done before noon I get all my reviews in the afternoon, where I want them. I sometimes do more than 20 lessons (for instance when I get new radicals) but I usually regret doing more than 40 at a time:p Today I did 60 lessons in the morning and it’s been a bit of a pain tbh.

Reading jprspereira’s Ultimate Guide (they linked it above) was prolly the most useful thing I did in my first week of Wanikani, so I recommend doing that if you haven’t already:)

[rwesterhof]

Level 2 was the level I spent most time on (out of all the levels) - as people mentioned, you’re figuring out how WK works, how to handle what it throws at you and what feels like a nice routine you can stick to.

There’s no need to do all your lessons, try to stick doing all your reviews because those pile up. Then add lessons as you feel comfortable doing so. Remember that reviews keep coming back until you burn the items, lessons only ever have to be done once and will result in more reviews.
Controlling the number of lessons you complete is a key way to keep the number of daily reviews manageable.

[Elfeera]

I have another approach. I have installed a userscript with a heatmap. And it shows how many consecutive days I did lessons.
I can’t do every lesson at once, or I’ll break that streak.
so I’ll do 20 when i get a new level, so I get vocab and some radicals, and maybe some kanji.
then I slow down to 10 or even 5 (depending on how many days I estimate to guru a radical/kanji).
So for tomorrow I have a lot of reviews, but it’ll go down.

Maybe not the prefered method but my streak is now 25/25, and I really don’t want to break it, says my OCD (yes, that also means I have done 1 lesson a day sometimes)

[potatonaught]

I’m just ahead of you @HaseebYousfani and I was definitely shocked at the sudden jump in lessons too I’m taking it slow with lessons, about 4-8 a day. I prioritize reviews and if my brain doesn’t want to do anything beyond those in a day, I don’t do 'em.

Feel free to check out
Lets Durtle the Scenic Route
or
Team Snails on Vacation

for some more folks who are takin’ it easy.

[SayouEffect]

There’s no right or wrong way, you have to find out what works for you, and no one knows that besides you.

[jprspereira]

@HaseebYousfani

As much as I’d like to get Wanikani done as soon as I can, I’ll just try not to worry about what’s coming.

I went as fast as Wanikani allows you to be, and I did on average 20 lessons a day (has you reach level 60 in 1 year). Even half that intensity (10 lessons/day) will have you beat a lot of people studying Japanese at college/university. Wanikani works that well

[PhantomWraith]

Typically when you unlock a new level, you unlock 4 different types of items:

1. Some vocabulary on the older level (in this case level 1 for you).
2. All of the radicals on the new level.
3. Kanji on the new radicals that dont use the new level kanji.
4. Vocab on the new level that only use existing kanji.

The WK script orderer will prioritize the items in the order I have listed, though there are a bunch of reorder scripts on the forums that will let you customize that. Some things to know are:

1. Vocab doesn’t block anything and is not technically needed to progress a level.
2. Guruing radicals will typically unlock some kanji.
3. Guruing kanji will give you level progression and some vocab words (I have seen from 1-6 words out of a kanji).

Also, keep in mind that any lessons you do turn into a bunch of reviews later so I try to stagger mine out to not get overwhelmed. Most people’s rule of thumb is to try to keep the apprentice items under 100 so you dont get too many reviews at once. Also, picking a set number of items you can effectively learn and retain in a day and then keeping that pace with lessons per day will also be a good habit to get into.

I hope this helps!

[Sharlotte]

@jprspereira you are everywhere
thanks for the guide and the guidance… first portugueses I find here

[jprspereira]

@Sharlotte

@jprspereira you are everywhere

All part of my world invasion plans…

@Sharlotte

thanks for the guide and the guidance… first portugueses I find here

Glad it helped! Nowadays, there are at least 5 Portuguese people here, just search for the typical PT on the usernames

[Sharlotte]

Well, i’m one of thouse however I am not using the pt version of my name
but I will open my eyes in order to find more tugas here

Já agora, por curiosidade, já fizeste o JLPT na UP?

[jprspereira]

@Sharlotte

Já agora, por curiosidade, já fizeste o JLPT na UP?

Fiz em Dezembro de 2017 o N4, mas chumbei por 5 pontos ou assim xD Depois nunca mais voltei a fazer devido ao covid e houve uns anos em que o JLPT na UP foi cancelado. Acho que depois de 2017, a UP só voltou a fazer o exame uma vez em 2019

Na altura, eramos umas 100 pessoas, distribuídas por todos os níveis.

[Sharlotte]

@jprspereira

devido ao covid e houve uns anos em que o JLPT na UP foi cancelado.

pois… eu até já pensei em ir a Santiago devido a esse problema