Pushed myself too hard for a year… and i would say not worth it… yeah i got to a higher level but paid for it with semi-burnouts and time delay to recover (mentally or review wall kind)
So take your time
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About the mnemonic and memorization, I put my recommendation in another post.
Try to make homophone-based mnemonics based on another Japanese word. Try to break down vocabularies into imagined origins (even if it is a false etymology).
It depends on your experience or previous memorization, so possibly
- はん is probably 半 (half)
- けん is sword, as in 剣道
Confusions would be more apparent in higher levels. Try KaniWani, and you will see even more confusions.
Anime Context Sentence is good, but I think you need more than that - various groups of meanings, and sentence / phrase synthesis.
I also mentioned Goo JE in that post, but another thing would probably help is, Context > Pattern of Use.
I think I used to use Item Marker, but I don’t know what it is like now. ConfusionGuesser would probably be nice too.
In any case, try to learn more than merely SRS system allows.
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I’m doing about 7 to 8 days per level now, don’t have any former Kanji knowledge. It’s absolutely doable but you have to do the reviews multiple times per day. I use a reorder script so when new Kanji and radicals unlock, I do those first and if possible as soon as they unlock so the speed keeps going.
Vocab is about 20 lessons per day and personally I noticed that vocab gets more easier to learn the more I do it.
If you have the time for it and are willing to dedicate some more spare time on WK, maybe you could double the amount of lessons you do to increase your speed to 2 weeks per level instead of a month? You could try it for a while and see if you can manage that without burning out.
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I’ve edited and formatted my reply into a post, I think some of the stuff there will change things up.
also +1 to that. i’ve only started using a reorder script this month, and it made things more manageable day to day. wish i’ve done it when just starting out.
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There’s about 35 kanji taught on average per level. If you keep up at your pace, you’ll learn over 400 kanji per year. That’s not a bad rate at all, especially if you’re keeping up that pace with your grammar and audio studies.
As for going max speed, I’ve seen some people do that, but say they still don’t have an N5 grasp of grammar. Well . . . I think I’m gonna reserve what I think about that. Of course, not everyone going max speed is like that.
I really don’t think you’re going slow at all. Keep in mind natives are taught kanji at an even slower pace that what you’re doing. Everyone has different levels of motivation, experience, prioritization, etc. that is difficult to take into account.
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Welcome, @Leemarrett! I’m sure many people will reply with great tips for speeding up and/or making your learning process more efficient.
I just want to comment to let you know that going slow is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, several of us have decided we prefer to slow down enough that we can thoroughly enjoy the journey of learning Japanese, without the potential stress that can sometimes come with going at top speed. See 
Let’s Durtle the Scenic Route 
, which I believe @distantflower has already posted a link to (in which case, I second the suggestion).
The most important thing, fast or slow or somewhere in between, IMHO, is to find a pace of learning and practice that is sustatinable, that you will be able to carry on going at a comfortable rate all the way until you reach your own personal learning goals. Going too slow could be boring; going too fast could be stressful or overwhelming. Just be mindful of how your rate of doing new lessons and the subsequent reviews is affecting your personal well-being, and you will be able to figure out the pace that works best for you personally. 
[Edit: I also second the idea to go for the lifetime subscription if you haven’t already. IMHO it’s a great deal, and eliminates any stress one might have about using their money ‘efficiently’, hence wanting to go as fast as possible. With lifetime, if you have to take a break or slow down, there’s no ‘penalty’ in doing so.
They have annual sales for lifetime subscriptions around Christmas every year, but if you just want to get it over with, it might still be a good deal to get it now. Just an idea! Of course you should check out the pricing and benefits and decide for yourself. 
Personally, I started around an October or so, hit level 3, and then just waited a couple months till December for the sale, so it wasn’t a terribly long wait.]
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I don’t know how people do it inside a year (madness, I tell you), but I can tell you how I dragged myself out of a long, slow slump; I stared using the Flaming Durtles app on my phone. An alert goes off every hour I have a review, I do the reviews, I get on with my life. No more trying to remember to log into the website every hour or two, no more forgetting to check for a couple of days and having dozens of reviews to slog through. Whenever the number of reviews starts to ease up, I’ll knock out some new lessons. It’s not much, but it’s helped me out a huge amount.
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Yes Flaming Durtles it great. Although for bigger review piles I do use my pc because I hate typing on my phone 
BTW Durtles also has a nice widget which shows you the amount of reviews and lesson to do on your phone homescreen. I found that more convenient than getting the hourly reminder
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Absolutely! Thirded. I saved up and started with a lifetime sub, and it really takes the pressure off when you have a bad time and need a break.
Seconded. I don’t use it that often - I also much prefer typing on a real keyboard - but it’s one of the best apps I have on my phone.
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How can we trust anything you say???
That being said, I bookmarked your post in case there’s something in there I may want to try.
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If it makes you feel any better, I started WaniKani a year ago (exactly) and the culmination of school work and family stress ended in me taking month-long breaks, which is why I am now ‘only’ level 6. You did that in roughly 5 months! If, like you say, you’re not in a hurry then it really doesn’t matter. I personally am in no rush, and am now just trying to not get overwhelmed. I respect everyone who reaches level 60 quickly, but I have accepted that snailing is the pace that works for me, with breaks and vacation mode and all. Best of luck to you, whether you wanna speed up or keep going the way you are now!
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I’ve been stuck on level 15 for almost a whole year, it never gets better.
People make it to 60 in a year because they have raw natural talent for language.
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Or because we spend a couple hours on WK daily alone and do 4-8 sessions of reviews daily without missing a day. When did you do 130 lessons in a single sitting? I did that yesterday, for me that is normal at this point, even if you could spread it out, but it doesn’t phase me. If you are willing to put in the time and do 300+ reviews daily, so can you.
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I was just coming to the forums to say something similar! It takes hours a day to get through the reviews once you hit a certain level. I had to take a break while I was moving across the country and now I have to abuse vacation mode whenever I get hit with a wall of mastery reviews from my catch-up days. Life’s just too busy sometimes. I know a lot of the people who make it to level 60 in a year are in their first few semesters of college and have said they have a lot of spare time. That’s really not an option when you’re working and have family.
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More so than this I think it’s a combination of having sufficient free time, a surplus of mental energy, and putting in a lot of effort. The term “talent” is often used in a way that just erases the hours upon hours upon hours of work people put into achieving things 
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Like every one here do your work how you like it .
i m not doing wanikani as a speedrun even if a take 8 day per level , the biggest problem about this is the focus and time needed , about 20 new things per day , the key for me is to be constant , if not i know i m going to fail ^^ .
every body is capable to do wanikani as a speedrun , (i didn’t believe i was able to study like that ,my memory is a mess) it just take time , i m a student so i have more time to do so .
(i want to finish next year too , because i finish my master study ,i will be harder to study like that if i m working ^^ )
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lol I keep my apprentice at 100 as suggested and clear over 100+ lessons every single day. I actually just did 180 this morning. So no, you just have a better memory.
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I think you misunderstood a bit, that they’re saying “in a single session” under the general assumption of people doing multiple per day. Note they did say 300+ in a day.
The point is, while probably inadvertent, too much attention on “better memory” does sort of tend to minimize the hard work that goes into this. Note that while I don’t doubt overall differences in aptitude to SOME degree, memory is itself a thing that can be practiced and trained with better methods. The person you are talking to regularly posts about spending many hours a day, every day, doing things in Japanese. Like if I recall correctly genuinely 8+, which sure most people don’t have time for, but is also an extremely admirable level of commitment and work.
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I’m not going to disagree with that completely. Having the luck of a natural talent for something definitely makes something a little easier, but talent alone never really amounts to much.
Making it to 60 in roughly a year isn’t just a matter of talent alone. Even if we’d assume someone had a 100% accuracy throughout every single review all the way to 60, they could still take anything between a year and 100 years to reach 60.
The hard work of learning with WK is (in my opinion, anyway) not just hammering the radicals, kanji and vocab into your memory (where a talent could be helpful, sure) but rather that if you really go fast, you’ll need to adjust your life to WK. Doing reviews just once a day won’t get you to max speed, neither will a more managable pace of just 5 lessons per day.
Ideally, you would have to do your reviews when they show up. How does a raw natural talent for languages help me with that? Not at all, really. It’s a decision that has to be made, whether someone is willing to sacrifice themselves to the crabigator to that degree or not. It’s probably better not to.
And even then, the really tricky part is keeping that up. Not slacking off for even a single day, or half a day. Making WK a routine to the point that you don’t even question anything anymore, but just do your reviews and are done with it. Not tiring of it, not giving up.
It’s pretty easy to chalk that perseverance and commitment up to “raw natural talent”, but really, that’s selling the effort that goes into it short.
That said, I want to point out that going slow isn’t a bad thing, and going fast isn’t a good thing. It’s pretty individual what speed someone learns at and dependant on way too many factors to make it worth comparing oneself to others. I don’t think it really matters when you reach your goal, but that you make it there.
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Consistency is the key. Small steps often is what takes you to Level 60. I set the goal to complete the program in 2 years thinking that if it took someone a little over a year that 2 years would be a cake walk. I was very wrong and it was a grueling pace that I wouldn’t recommend for anyone. But if you are serious about making faster gains whether its in two years or ten, then read my post on Memory Palaces in order to increase your review accuracy and set a reasonable schedule of completing a Level…say…every ten days. That averages to roughly ten new lessons a day, a combination of radicals, kanji, and vocabulary that you must complete as well doing all your reviews for that day, spacing them out over breakfast, lunch, dinner, or whatever version is best for you. You don’t want massive dumps in your Lesson or your Review piles because the further along you go, the more overwhelming it will get, trust me. A level every ten days is 3 Levels a month, which is 36 Levels in a year. Savy? With life and whatnot 25 Levels in a year is usually more reasonable and finishing the program in roughly 3 years is a healthy goal for a part time learner. Also, keep in mind that people completing WaniKani in a little over a year or less than two years often have been studying Japanese for years before finding wanikani. (Personally my previous vocabulary knowledge is what sped me through the first quarter of wanikani no problem). Some of them have even passed the JLPT N3 and are looking for something really intensive. Just decide the level of intensity that is best for you and remember it’s all about the journey brother.
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