A few years ago I’ve read a study about learning vocabulary.
3 groups all given the same list of vocabularies. I think it was done with British students taking French.
I don’t have the exact numbers handy right now but it went like this:
One group tried to memorize from English to French, one from French to English and one did both directions.
The results were that from (made up number) 30 words to memorize, the group that tried English → French scored 13, the group that tried French → English scored 23 and the group that tried both scored on average 24.
As I said, I don’t know the exact numbers anymore but I do remember that the group trying native language → target language scored significantly lower on their test than the other 2 groups and that the other 2 groups were only 1 apart with the group doing it both ways being ahead.
So, if we believe that study for a moment (and there’s no reason not to. Having been forced to grind English vocabulary in school for 10 years I would say that the results match my experience) doing both directions has very little benefit. But the time investment is of course much higher.
Personally, I feel like this is a very common thing with people that learnt a language to fluency, I don’t really see the point in SRS systems or just grinding vocab in general. I don’t speak English because of the hundreds of tests I had to take in school but because the second season of Doctor Who wasn’t available in my native language and my teacher in school spoke like a good chunk of the actors in that show. So I got my favorite dictionary site up and watched that show.
Using the language and exposing yourself to it gets you much further than that.
Japanese is special because you need to be able to read the kanji. You just have to know them. That’s why I use wanikani because it is pretty hard reading anything if you want to avoid grinding kanji.
So here’s what I’d suggest:
Give yourself a few weeks. Just do reviews. Don’t do lessons.
Stop doing kaniwani
Learn some grammar, get a fun manga. With level 36 you’ll have a good basis and don’t need to look up every single kanji.
If you find a manga (or whatever. Light novel, novel, anime, live action movie, games. Doesn’t matter) that you enjoy you’ll easily put in more time than you’d put into kaniwani and it won’t even feel like studying. Not just that but you’ll also learn words relevant to what you enjoy doing in your spare time. People always say “If you learn Japanese by watching anime or playing games you won’t learn the important words but a bunch of useless stuff” but if you need that “useless stuff” for things you enjoy is it really useless? I played a lot of RPGs when I was younger all in English. I knew a lot of words related to medieval warfare but couldn’t write a shopping list reliably. I still got fluent in English and work in English every day and wrote my thesis in uni in English.
Do you want to know why the French, Germans, Spaniards speak such a shitty English and the Mexicans, Dutch and Swedes don’t? Because the French, Germans and Spaniards dub everything to their native language and the Mexicans, Dutch and Swedes don’t and use subtitles. Half of Europe learnt English by watching CSI Miami, How I met your Mother or Scrubs with subtitles.
So yeah. Do something fun and don’t put more unnecessary burden on your with kaniwani.
This got really long but I feel like there’s this big problem language learners have where there is “studying” and then there’s “fun” and if something is not meant for studying, it’s not actually doing anything for you. That’s not true. Everything that makes you use Japanese will get you forward. So if you feel burnt out by your study tools, reevaluate if you actually need them and do something fun instead or tone it down and add some fun.