While 400 doesn’t sound like that much as a raw number, if you’re getting so many wrong that you never see the same ones again, then I agree a reset is probably good. I reset from level 53 down to level 30 last year, after several years in “vacation” mode, and it made a huge difference. My strategy now is to never do more than 80 of anything per day, whether reviews or lessons, and cap lessons at 5 for kanji and 10 for vocab. If I miss a day, I don’t try to make it up by doing 160 reviews or anything like that. I do my 80 reviews, repeat the next day, and just let the wave wash past, until eventually the number goes back down and I can start doing lessons again.
It’s not just about what’s easy to do in the moment, but realizing that every chunk of 100+ reviews you do, whether you get them right or wrong, will come back as another 100+ reviews at some later time, so there’s really no benefit for being a try-hard in the moment. Note that this strategy doesn’t work if your accuracy is too low, because there’s no guarantee you’ll see your mistakes soon enough to remember them. That’s why I advocate resetting.
Since November, I’ve gone through 13 levels at this slow but steady pace, and this time they’re sticking, despite not really doing any cross-training. I still generally hit around 90% accuracy, and my “burn” pile is still accumulating steadily, so I consider that a success. Anyway, good luck, and condolences for your cat.
On a serious level though I agree whole heartedly. Wanikani has become an incredibly ingrained part of my routine. I’ve also done a great job of getting at least 40 minutes of listening/shadowing practice in a day with my drive to work. That said, my reading and grammar are not nearly as good as they could be. I haven’t dedicated enough time to reading with the cell phone off and the door shut! The importance of reading cannot be understated. It gives you a chance to wrestle with longer complex sentences, get exposure to new vocabulary, remember old vocabulary, internalize grammar beyond recitation of rules, and allow you to enjoy the language at your own pace. It’s high time I uninstalled Roller Coaster Tycoon, I was born in 1996 give me a break, and went whole hog on reading native materials.
It is normal to hit periods where you do not feel like you are making much progress. This definitely happened to me recently. I feel like once I hit Level 9, everything started blending together and just did not make any sense. I kept missing the same words over and over. The kanji started looking the same. I put it all on vacation in April when I was on a real vacation and did not even think about looking at it again until about 2 weeks ago.
I actually lost all interest in working on any Japanese for most of the spring and early summer - I think there was just too much going on in real life, and I just did not have much extra time. I don’t really have a specific goal I am working on. I hope to travel there some day but not likely to be able to stay for more than a week or two. Like many people here, I love learning languages and I find the Japanese language (and culture) fascinating!
When I took everything off vacation mode, I had forgotten a bunch (but not all!) I decided to limit myself to only about 50 reviews per day, no new lessons until I had things back under control. At first, I was only getting 30-40% correct but after 2 weeks I am back in the 75-85% range. I have cut WAY back on new lessons - in the last 2 weeks, I have only done 10 new kanji. This has really helped me solidify lessons 7-9.
That being said - I do not think it is realistic to use WaniKani as the sole resource for learning Japanese nor are simply running flash cards the only way to use WaniKani. WaniKani is best as a part of a bigger study plan. My main resource is actually working my way through Genki right now. I am only on Lesson 5. I am focusing more on nailing down the Genki vocabulary first - which I do with a prepared deck for this in KitSun (another SRS program). (I have never been able to figure out Anki). Then, once I have the vocab for a lesson learned, I work on grammar. Understanding grammar is really important. I also subscribe to Tokini Andy who has a whole online course he and his wife/partner have developed that goes along with Genki and Quartet. I am also reading at my level using the Graded Readers and some books from a series called Naze? Doushite? that is written for Japanese elementary children starting from 1st grade. You are probably reading at a much higher level than this already.
When I finish a WK review session - I think about a few specific things I seemed to really get mixed up and do some outside work to sort them out and make them more clear.
Why do I keep plugging through WK? Because it really is a great resource and pushes my reading along faster than without it. It is really cool when I recognize kanji out and about. I’m just in no hurry - every review session adds another or a few burns to the pile.
Ive been on level 28 now for 480 days. Still do reviews and burn items. Then again, im just doing this for fun. Thought it might help with moving to japan for work but I now realize moving to Japan for work would be a bad idea and best to just visit for long periods. Now I can read a little.
Just curious, as someone who just reached level 11, what is faster about the later levels? From a quick glance, it looks like those levels are comparable in terms of number of kanji and vocabulary, though fewer radicals. Are the kanji/vocabulary easier, or is it just a consequence of not having to wait to finish radicals before the second half of the kanji unlock?
