I hit my first hurdle

[KrisV70]

So after moving swiftly through the first 14 levels. My stats are starting to drop significantly.
so much so that I slowed down taking new vocab lessons by a lot. Infact i am one complete chapter behind in vocabulary (two words learned from chapter 16)

the big issue for me is that I currently have a lot of reviews piling up and well while I was 95% correct before it is now in the high seventies. making that I have 276 items in Apprentice, and 638 items in Guru.

So I wonder how you all coped with that hurdle.
I currently have 137 lessons waiting for me and 150 reviews (110 apprentice; 25 guru;15 master)
So I better get back at it.

Any insights on how you coped with this is greatly appreciated.

[RebBlue]

I’d recommend slowing down on the lessons.

I did the exact same thing you did. Kept up this pace and the reviews just kept building and building until I burnt out and reset to level 1. Not everyone does burn out. But if you feel like you’re struggling there’s no shame in slowing down. There’s also no shame in your current accuracy, I remember hearing that around 80% is ideal for learning.

[Honumael]

I went with a slow pace from the start so I haven’t hit a hurdle like that until now.

[2tea]

@KrisV70

making that I have 276 items in Apprentice

I would definitely slow down here, stop doing lessons for a short while and manage this apprentice pile. You go to wkstats and check your items to see if there’s a particular level that gives you a hard time. If there is a particular trend in your apprentice items then go over the lessons in this level, if it’s a recent level, and you can’t seem to tame that apprentice pile to the low hundred, I would even suggest reseting one or two levels down, and slowing down until you get your groove back.

[evandcs]

completely normal phenomenon

for me until lvl 21 I had a huge drop in accuracy, then I started really paying attention in the differences in radicals in a kanji to avoid mistaking them.

[Marifly]

I did exactly what you did, on the same level. Sigh. I ended up burning out, leaving Wanikani for a few years and then resetting.

Slow down. Slow way down. Never ever ever do new lessons when you have reviews waiting. That will only make it worse.

Then find a number of apprentice items that you’re comfortable with, and promise yourself that you’ll not do lessons when you have more apprentice items than that. My number last time was 150, which turned out to be too much. 100 apprentice items is more comfortable. Your number of daily reviews is approximately the number of apprentice items plus 10% of the number of guru items. With 100 apprentice items and 500 guru items you’ll get about 150 reviews per day.

But for now, just forget doing lessons and focus on reviews. You probably have some items that keep jumping up to Guru and down again to Apprentice. Focus on getting them under control and getting your number of apprentice items under control. Spend a month or more on level 17 if you have to. But please get your number of apprentice items under control before you burn out!

[Lederhosen]

Ahh… Yep. I hit 14 and suddenly the difficulty ramped up. Continuing to blaze on through 15 did not help.

Slow down if you’re already reaching your daily time limit for study. Otherwise, what really helped me was to practice writing the kanji along with their readings. To write them, you have to know the kanji. You can’t get away with a vague idea of the shape, or thinking something like, “The kanji in this level with the water radical in the upper right.” It also forces you to slow down and spend more time with each kanji. After I’ve written the kanji a couple of times to get a grasp on the position and scale of the radicals, I write it several more times while speaking the reading and meaning over and over. Then I use this deck with Anki to keep practicing the kanji.

I do essentially the same thing with vocabulary.

Does it take more time? Oh yes. But also my retention is much greater. There’s no way I could keep up with my current trend of 8-day levels without it. (Note: I spend… a lot of time each day on Japanese study. I’m sacrificing other things for now but am working on cutting back. Don’t be me.)

[EboshiSama]

I burnt out last year by obsessing over having 0 reviews and 0 lessons at any one time. With other stuff going on in my life, I couldn’t keep that cadence up so had to quit.

This time around (started from scratch again ~9 months ago) I am deliberately slowing down on my lessons and keeping an eye on my apprentice level items. Given they come up more often Ive found it makes it a lot more manageable this way. These days I tend to aim for between 80-120ish apprentice items at any one time. Of course, this varies for others, and you may want to tweak it so it works for you.

頑張って下さいね!^_______^

[servette]

Plenty of good advice here already, to which I will add just a few thoughts. I’m not that far away from you, WK level-wise, although my prior Japanese learning activities likely have differed from yours - I’ve been trying (and, for a long time, not really trying) to learn Japanese for a very long time. No, I’m not even going to admit how many years it has been since I first started. I have passed the N5, and I have failed the N4 (but by only 3 points, so I am ‘sort of’ at an N4 level - call it ‘pseudo-N4’ if you will). I may want to take the N3 this year or next, but maybe not. I have taken the JLPT purely for personal satisfaction, and may not continue taking the tests, because the structure of studying for, taking, and passing the JLPT is actually at odds with my goals for actually learning to speak, read, and write Japanese at an acceptable level for me.

I went on vacation mode for many months - and recently returned - with a pile of reviews to do (there were 800 when I resumed doing WK - I’m currently down to 300-ish or 400-ish reviews that I need to get through before eventually hitting 0).

I used to often get mostly 95-ish percent review scores - not anymore - but I’ve changed my approach to WK since restarting after vacation mode.

For example, I’m not letting low percentages on reviews deter me, because my goal is to cement my learning now, rather than to speed through my levels. I have stopped doing any new lessons until I get my reviews back to 0, even though that will take me some time and some doing - but I am (at least, I think I am) doing a better job of learning this time around.

For a lot of review items that I’m encountering, I don’t have the slightest, dimmest, faintest recollection of having previously ‘learned’ (or ‘seen’) them.

No problem - I’m trying to do a better job now.

If I don’t remember a reading, I will check not only the reading, but also the meaning and the context. If I don’t remember the meaning, I will also look at the reading and context, just to help further cement them in my memory.

Even for some of them, if I am successful in dredging up a long-forgotten reading or meaning, but I’m not fully confident of it, or I hesitate rather than immediately keying in my answer, then I also review the reading, meaning, and context.

I also try recalling mnemonics, both the WK ones (that I often don’t like or use) as well as my own ones that I may have come up with.

It can be painful at times. What’s that saying? “No pain, no gain.”

I’m aiming to do 100 or more reviews per day, and trying to get back into my rhythm of doing WK in the morning before getting up for work, with occasional attempts in the evening as well.

I’m not even looking closely at my progress from session to session, rather I’m keeping my browser open to the WK reviews at the point where I last stopped, rather than closing the browser page or returning to the dashboard.

The system will add reviews that I don’t actually see that way (unless something happens to force a browser refresh) - but that’s OK - I know that more reviews are being added while I attack the existing ones in the open browser page - and I’m not stressing about it or concerned about it at all.

I know that eventually I will knock my reviews down to zero. And whenever that time may come, I expect that I will have done a better job of learning those than I did previously.

What will my study patterns be like going forward after then? Honestly, I haven’t decided yet. I’ll face that decision at the proper time.

While tackling my reviews, I am also intending to, going to, at least think about, ‘trying’ (albeit so far somewhat unsuccessfully) to get into a habit of also working through Genki 2 and Satori Reader and NHK Easy News, and maybe get back on track reading some ABBC or BBC manga entries, and using other sources as well.

I will also continue my normal evening routine of watching anime with Japanese VAs and English subs, with the remote ‘pause button’ in one hand and the Shirabe Jisho iPhone app in the other, for actively looking up unknown or not-well-known words that I hear.

Of course, YMMV. That may extend my journey to level 60 to five or ten years - whatever - I don’t really care about that, because actual my goal is to learn (that is, to significantly improve my) Japanese.

[VegetarianZombie]

Same. Hit level 15 a few years ago and I just crumbled. I was spending up to two hours a day on reviews and soon I came to dread the site. I used to speed through lessons, trying to clear them out. Now I just stick to fifteen a day.

Here’s the thing. I was planning on going to Japan at a certain date, so I was rushing to learn the language. We’ve since pushed that trip down the road and now, it’s much easier to learn the language without time pressure. I don’t fret over making mistakes. Also, I realized going at a slow pace is actually faster for me in the end.

Better to take your time and eventually make it to the end, versus going fast and stopping. Good luck!

[KrisV70]

well i started my Japanese learning journey the year before Corona hit. and while some used Corona to their benefit regarding studies for me it was the opposite. i was going to kyoto for 6 months to a language school in april but that never happened . there was no way to get there.
I finished genki chapters 1-7 in the previous summer Language school in Fukuoka. and I finished the first Genki by myself. by that time. I usually spend two hours a day on Japanese but I find it hard to concentrate. anyway during the next years i finished genki 2 all by myself and this school year i did an entry test for evening school. i aced it for the level. But since they dont have classes at that level I am doing the final 5 chapters of Genki 2 again.
Prior to my first grammar learning. I completed Heisig in about 6 months. While I vaguely remember some keywords , I dont think it really helped me. And while I think Wanikani is not perfect, I have a hard time agreeing with the extra radicals, I do think it is the best solution for me. I am speedrunning as I tend to procrastinate. I dont dare to go into N3 grammar. As I do want a firm grip on N4 and I dont have it yet. A test I will ace. But my own sentence making ability and speaking are weak.
English isn’t my first language, but I feel at home in it yet it adds some extra difficulty as I tranlate from Japanese to English and than Dutch and there are some subtle nuances in the use of words.
So Id dont really think I am translating Dutch into English now and I sort of want to be able to do that in Japanese as well. But first comes vocabulary acquisition and Kanji acquisition to master that. I set myself a goal to be N3 by the end of the year. and be ahead in vocabulary and kanji. Like enough to pass N2 for that.
I don’t think much of those JPLT tests regarding my goals, since speaking is not included, however I can sort of track my progress on different aspects of the Japanes language I want to eventually master as well.
My reason for speedrunning now is that I procrastinated in the past and I sort of want to work and live in Japan. I will be 54 this summer. So I dont want to waste much time. I dont have that luxury anymore. During Corona it was doubtful, well I sort of used that as an excuse. regarding if times are doubtful or not one should still chase his goals.
I hate doing unnecessary and ineficient tasks. But this has stopped me from advancing. And it is a limitation I did put on myself. so regardless I want to pursue this goal at least a couple of years. If I didnt make it by than, I probably continue to learn Japanes but not with the goal to have a live there.

[servette]

@KrisV70

I completed Heisig in about 6 months. While I vaguely remember some keywords , I dont think it really helped me.

I initially expected that Heisig RTK would be the ‘magic’ tool that I was missing in all of my previous failed attempts to learn kanji - but I quickly decided that it was not going to get the job done, because it did not deal with Japanese readings, vocabulary, and the like.

Whereas for me, WK was almost the first tool that gave me confidence that I was actually learning the kanji in a way that would enable me to read native Japanese materials (I had had a tiny bit of success with an Anki deck, but I hate Anki, so…).

So, yes, while WK does have plenty of shortcomings, at least for me it has produced better results than any other method that I’ve tried (and I’ve tried and failed plenty).

I have noticed over time that, whether watching anime or J-dramas or news reports, I have made significant progress in transitioning from hearing, then translating in my head, to hearing the spoken language and directly understanding it (albeit with lots of missed words along the way due to having an inadequate mastery of vocabulary). Since English is my native language, at least I don’t have the added hurdles that you are facing when using WK or other language-learning resources in English.

I do still have a much harder time with producing spoken Japanese than with listening comprehension, and my grammatical skills are still somewhat lacking - but at least I do have a pretty clear idea of what I will need to focus on in order to improve things.

Good luck with your goal of living in Japan - I’m hoping to at least do a year or two of Japanese language study in Japan at some point in my imagined future…

[marciow1]

Now that you mentioned you finished Genki 1 and 2, that explains some of what’s happening. I didn’t study either book, but I googled it, and the 2 books teach you 317 kanji, so you probably already knew the majority of the kanji for the first WK levels, which is one reason you breezed through them. Now that all the kanji you are learning are not in Genki, it’ll be difficult to keep the same pace and accuracy.

Besides that, I agree with the other posters about slowing down. 276 is just too many apprentice items at only level 16. I didn’t even know it was possible to have that many at such a low level.

[pmflanders]

It was on these forums that I saw someone mention keeping apprentice level items around 100 and that made all the difference for me. I would wait to do lessons until my apprentice number was below 100 and just do enough lessons to keep it there.

[KrisV70]

Absolutely.
Another thing that i am failing at after finishing genki is vocabulary. I am at the moment in Japan at a japanese school and the majority of the students are from kanji countries. The vast majority have only started learning japanese 6 months ago. But their kanji knowledge is quite intimidating. Sure Japan have their own sounds but they have more than a leg up understanding sentences. So my class has 21 people in it. We are dealing with the start of n3 level. Some of my classmates are preparing for N2. I thought i would have been able to continue wanikani but i think i see (actively) about 50 new words each day. And we learn about ten kanji a day. I have 5 more weeks of lessons. Currently we have our one week summer holiday. When i return i think i will focus on building my vocabulary. (And kanjireading) . Grammar i will learn something if i encounter it a couple of times. Speaking is a big issue. I hate making mistakes and i sort of want to say more than i am able to now. Listening is fine. I think watching a lot of anime helped with that. So now i need more reading and vocabulary.

But yeah the genki books sort of were a trap. Ideally you start wanikani soon in your japanese learning journey and you dont want to speedrun. I was on track when i made that post to almost finish wanikani in a year.
Genki covered a lot of basic grammar. I was not too impressed by the explanation sometimes, but in my experience the textbooks that i have used all have some issues. So it is good if you have a teacher.