Well here I am, level 60.
Feels very emotional. I’ve been going through some really rough times, the last few years. Wanikani is one of very few things in my life that I’ve managed to keep going consistently and I feel very proud for that. It’s been a constant source of comfort, a supporting presence that has given me something to aim for and work towards, every day. I’m very grateful, though feel slightly scared and nervous about how I will cope without it.
Here are my tips for anyone reading this who feels daunted by the journey:
- Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Do as much or as little as you feel able to do each day, it’s not a race.
- Use the forums as much as you can. They are an invaluable resource. Personally I didn’t feel up to engaging much on them and I regret that. However I discovered so many useful tools for learning by perusing different posts. I also think its a great place to look for support and encouragement.
- Don’t compare yourself and your progress to anyone else. This is your journey and the important thing is that you’re there doing it. It doesn’t matter if you learn faster or slower than anyone else or if you find certain things more difficult. If you’re struggling, reach out in the forums!
- I found the manage synonyms tool very useful. I always added single letter synonyms for every entry. So for example “Move for a different job”, I would add “mfadj” as a synonym or even just “t” for transfer. I found this extremely convenient for saving time on typing, especially when on mobile.
- If you make a typo or a mistake, you can back out of the reviews immediately to undo that mistake. There are probably better ways of doing this, plugins or whatever. But I found it helpful to prevent enlightened level from dropping down to guru because of a typing mistake.
- Here are the tools that I find most helpful (I think I found all from the forums): Jisho (online dictionary), Language Reactor (Netflix add on), ichi.moe (sentence parser), handwritten kanji search (look up kanji by drawing them), slow japanese by mochifika (spotify podcast), a dictionary of basic japanese grammer (book you can order on amazon), Anki (custom flashcard SRS tool), Audible (can get Japanese audiobooks, I listen to Harry Potter in Japanese because I am so familiar with the story, it helps me to infer from context)
Next I’m going to focus on grammar. I haven’t really learned any actual Japanese yet lol, I chose to learn Kanji and reading first before doing anything else. So I can’t speak it at all, my listening is poor and have very little grammar. So I’m going to start working more on that and gradually phase out Wanikani. I’ll rely on Anki more, for new and unfamiliar kanji/vocab. And hopefully one day soon I will get to visit Japan and go see some live music! I chose to learn Japanese because of composers like Nobuo Uematsu, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Joe Hisaishi.
Anyway, I wish every one the best of luck with their respective journeys. Thanks for everything.
I hope you treat yourself to your absolute favourite cake and thoroughly enjoy it, it is well-deserved!
It is a really excellent resource and it made a huuuge difference in my ability to read basic Japanese, and it felt great to actually make tangible progress and pass the N4 after my on-and-off journey of ~15 years of Japanese learning.
I’m level 4 so it’s really inspiring 
