I am dealing with sever Wanikani burn out. I got a year sub when I was at the lower levels because I was starting my Japanese language learning journey. But recently I can’t even do more then 50 reviews a month. I am only level 7, and when my reviews were a hundred a day I was doing fine. But studying for N5 through others means pushed Wanikani to the side. Now for the past few months the reviews have been growing and growing, I think now maxed at 660 terms to review. I was able to pass N5 because of Wanikani, and now that I am studying for N4 I want to get back in the groove. I just can’t get over how many I have to review, it feels impossible. I was wondering if anyone knows any tips to get me out of this funk, or tricks that will make my brain want to come back to kanji practice?
Update based on comments
I thank those who gave me advice below. I think I was speeding through wanikani when I first started and when I took a brake from learning more kanji for vocab, grammer, and listening I actually screwed myself in the reviews I didn’t put into vacation mode. I kept thinking of these 600+ reviews as having to be done at once or in big batches, but through the comments I see I am being too hard on myself. I will try to get back in the groove and start with a little here and there with vacation mode on to get it down, and then going forward not rush through levels and then not pause when I’m away. Again, thank you for the advice everyone, I am feeling a little better about my situation after see other people having this issue before.
When I had ~900 reviews (I think it was) I came up with a set of recurring situations in my daily life (e.g. pouring myself something to drink, doing laundry, leaving the house) and made the rule that before each of them I’d do at least 1 review. That was enough to make some good progress and getting down to zero in a matter of weeks (I don’t remember how many, ~2-ish maybe). I’m doing reviews on Smouldering Durtles with back-to-back readings and meanings enabled.
I mean…why do you want to practice kanji? You said you want to pass N4. Is that a good enough reason? Do you have other reasons? The more reasons you have, the more learning kanji should sound like a good idea.
Don’t think of it as “I have 600 reviews to do.” Pick some small number like 1 or 5 or 10 reviews, and resolve to do those. Try to do a small session often - once an hour or every time you drink water or whenever you’re switching tasks or something.
On the website, you can hit the wrap up button immediately to only do 10 reviews. Otherwise I’d recommend installing a script like Reorder Omega to force back to back reviews so you can commit to only doing 5 or something. Or install one of the third party apps like Smouldering Durtles to set your review size/back to back.
It might also be worth asking yourself if there’s any other scripts/app settings that would make reviews easier. The goal is to remove obstacles that make doing reviews annoying. Maybe you could start by rewarding yourself with a treat every time you do 50 reviews and condition yourself back into feeling positive about them.
If you just want to work on whittling the pile down first, you could put on vacation mode after you do every session. You’ll definitely knock a bunch of items back down to apprentice, and seeing those items keep coming back will feel like the pile isn’t going down. But if you keep vacation mode on in between reviews, it’ll delay that.
Don’t worry about your accuracy for now. It’s been a while since you did reviews, so it’s normal to have forgotten some of them. The point of SRS is to have items come back before you’ve forgotten them, but that doesn’t count if you’ve taken a break. The important thing is that if you keep doing reviews, eventually you’ll stop getting them wrong. There’s also the Extra Study script if you want to quiz yourself on words repeatedly.
That sounds like a better way of dealing with it. I keep going and going until I just feel like I am just getting no further which is what is getting me to quit after 50 reviews and not coming back for awhile. But doing 2 or 3 before a different task seems less daunting than feeling like I need to do all 660 and catch up. Thank you
I want to study kanji for more then just N4, I live in Japan currently and I would like to read signs when driving [kanji is more clear than romaji for certain exits]. I want to be able to fill out forms at the doctor without using google translate. I want to go to ramen shops and read the menu on the wall. N4 is more like a deadline to motivate myself to study everyday, without a test coming up I feel as though my will to sit and study fades.
For your tips, they all sound like they would help. Thinking in small amounts and before doing tasks seems like it would keep me coming back. and I will probably turn vacation mode on until I get it down to like 200. Thank you for the advice
Had this once too, that I didn’t do Wanikani for a while and had then many reviews. I decided to do Wanikani for a certain amount of time every day, like 10-20 min (choose something which you are comfortable with, you can spread it throughout the day). Don’t add any new lessons, just review until it comes back to a manageable size.
It might be somewhat annoying at first, at least, if you forgot a lot of the vocabulary. But over time it will get easier and you can remember the words again.
It helped me in general to have a time definition on how long I do Wanikani than trying to do all at once. (I mean also when you caught up and sometimes might still have a lots of reviews.)
That’s quite early for a burn out, I would look for a motivation & reward boost… I hope you make it through, learning more is really satisfying. What I found helpful is to use vacation mode from time to time if my back log goes over 300, I put it on until I have time to go through it. I realized backlog bigger than that is demotivating to even start, but that’s just my threshold.
How many reviews are you willing to do? Actually think about how much work you’re really willing to put in to make this work every day.
Let’s say the number is 100. Set aside the time you need for that and just do it. You don’t need to be a hero and knock them all out at once. When you wake up, its a new day and new you. You’ve got a responsibility to yourself to knock out your 100 reviews so you just do it. You don’t worry about the 500 left because its not your problem. That’s to be split amongst 5 future yous.
Everyone has days or weeks where they don’t want to do their reviews or study routine. If you don’t have the self accountability to do it anyways, you’ll have a hard time maintaining or creating any routines for as long as you stick with this language. Best of luck friend. Make yourself proud one day at a time.
before making this post I didn’t know there was a vacation mode, i’m glad it’s being pointed out because I stepped away from wanikani to practice grammar and vocabulary. Seeing so many reviews when coming back is what is demotivating me, thank you
Thank you for pointing it out in that way, the left behind are a future me problem not a now me issue. I was willing to do about 100 - 150 reviews a day when I first started, I want to get back into that mode. Thank you for a new way of looking at it
It may benefit you to work out approximately how many items you can handle in each stage, then. That way, you don’t end up doing too many lessons in a brief time and overwhelming yourself in a few days.
What works for me when my motivation was down is to make it a habit to do 15 minutes (actual time is up to you, but 10-15 minutes really is not that long) of wanikani review a day.
Furthermore, don’t worry about making mistakes. If you don’t know the meaning/reading in a few seconds (5 seconds perhaps?) just mark it wrong; chances are you will benefit from having it appear sooner in the future. This way, you will be able to do at least 60 reviews in 10 minutes.
You also have the extra benefits of just looking around for kanji in daily life, pay attention to those, I found them incredibly helpful in aiding mamory, even if the kanji doesn’t appear in wanikani until much later.
