Is there a way to have WaniKani give me less new words but more reviews? I’ve been struggling getting the words in this level down and it feels like I’m stuck and not going anywhere. It keeps trying to throw so many new words at me when I barely have the previous ones down. I’ve been bombing my reviews lately and it doesn’t feel like anything’s been sticking. Reviews will occasionally throw a word I had previously guru’d from a previous level and I’ve already completely forgotten it. I’ve just been finding myself increasingly frustrated and it’s starting to affect my motivation. Is anyone else in a similar situation or have any tips or advice?
You don’t have to do new lessons every day. I don’t do new words until I get my reviews down to about 35 in the next 24h. That’s the thing you have most control over I think.
As for messing up guru’d items, this is part of the learning process. I regularly have to re-guru old items multiple times. I suspect this gets easier when you start reading. Somewhere on the forums there’s an app that will serve you reading material based on what you’ve already learned on WK. I don’t have it on hand, but I will go searching and see if I can’t find it.
EDIT: I’m seeing a lot of people recommend “Satori Reader”, which is freemium.
I believe kakehashi is the app pancakegamer was referencing.
My recommendation, stop doing lessons until you get your accuracy up to the ‘learning zone’ as they call it in the widget. Just do the reviews that come in and note the ones you’re having difficulty with. Engage with the problem kanji and vocab in different ways. Read the example sentences, find pictures to associate with the word, write it on pen and paper, what have you.
Once you get your accuracy percentage back up, just add 5 lessons a day. Spend more time with them when you’re ‘learning’ them for the first time.
Finally, find ways to encounter these words outside of wanikani. Tadoku graded readers are good, n5 comprehensible input (I like shun san) on youtube is good. Language learning is all about context, so if the rote memorization is a struggle, find a way to give yourself some context
(btw this struggle is very normal and pretty much never fully goes away. here’s an example of two words I’m pingponging between apprentice and guru atm: 否決【ひけつ, rejection】否定【ひてい, denial】)
Honestly, it’s really helpful hearing that other people are also struggling with similar things. I’ve been trying to practice by playing games in Japanese but my vocab is still small enough that I can only read maybe 5% of the text lol
As has been mentioned,
is a great app for jumpstarting reading, even though it’s not entirely free.
There’s a free app called
However, unlike Satori Reader, Shinobi was made with the help of AI
Some other good free (and not made with AI) resources are
and
And yes, as have been also pointed, you don’t have to do all the lessons at once!
Do as much as you feel comfortable!
Feeling stuck – is quite a common feeling among Japanese learners, I’ve been through this many times. The key is to have a daily routine and keep following it even when it feels like it brings no result. The result is there – it’s just that it takes time for it to become visible!
Anyway, best of luck with your studies! 
When I was learning to teach, the prof said you have to see something 75-100 times before you learn it. I’m sure it takes a lot more than that for Japanese. So when I get frustrated, I try to remember those words. It usually helps.
I would recommend checking out the kakehashi app (either iOS or Android) for doing WK reviews to solidify your recollection of kanji that you have learned in WK, without affecting your SRS timing. It also has many other useful features, but that is one that I have used often and it really helped me.
For memorization / recall itself, engaging in different ways is a key to remember things you can’t remember head on. It doesn’t have to be real use of the language, but rather anything, like mini-games or class activities.
While repetition with spaced timing could make remember longer term. Other ways might be better to make remember at all, not just rote memorization.
For flash cards like ones with SRS, it’s not just repetition, but also testing effect – you remember things because you try to recall, reinforcing memory in some certain aspects. Maybe you will remember if you try differently, and it doesn’t have to be SRS. (SRS rather excels in longer term.)
The early stages are so very harsh and a lot of people are filtered out thinking they can’t do it but it just requires a lot of patience with yourself and a belief in the cards. I faced a similar come to terms moment multiple times on my journey to level 40 and maybe there are more obstacles in the way.
Some moments where I thought to myself, man is this really where I want this to end. But I wanted the story to continue. Japanese language is such a potent multiplier because of how hard it is for westerners. Its coveted because its rare and its rare because its hard. Its years of patent dedication. Hours upon hours burnt in offering. Some days I think is this all worth it?..Anyway…
Set yourself up for victory.
I recommend using these two widgets to guide your workload. We all have bad or even off days, so the daily metric is just to tell you how you are doing today. The 7 day metric is what matters. If your metric is low, then stop doing lessons and you will be okay once you clear up your troublesome cards. Make sure to do your reviews and even do extra practice reviews. And be patient with yourself because this process is madness. Cool shapes that have meaning when bundled with other certain shapes, and they have different prounciations at times for reasons. Its madness but its also fun.
I also used the self study quiz tool. Its in the forums somewhere and if you set it up properly you can get curated reviews. This helps prime my memory. Its a little bit cheaty, but whatever helps me remember is fine.
Believe in the SRS cards.
