I’ve been relatively consistent with logging in at least once a day for the last year and just hit level 20. Unfortunately, I now have let me reviews stack up to over 1000 for the third time and can’t seem to motivate myself to knock the pile down again. I think my lack of motivation is caused by the fact that every time I knock the pile down it just builds back up to 500 in a matter of days and If I try to do 100 reviews a day it seems to build up to 1000 in a week or two. My questions are below:
I’m trying to keep my average time per level at 10 days, is that the problem?
At level 20, is there an “ideal” number of reviews I should do each day?
Any other ideas to get back on track?
I think there is no “ideal” pace for everyone. Everyone has their own pace.
So, I think you should try to determine your own pace. It seems to me like the pace you’ve been going at, might be a bit too fast for your comfort. There is nothing wrong with slowing down a bit.
Also, I’d recommend taking notes on items you learn. You can take physical notes or you can use an app like Microsoft OneNote - the point is - it would help you.
A month ago or so I had a pile of nearly 2700 reviews. I’ve managed to tackle them without reset. I didn’t try to tackle them in one go, I took about a week to completely clear them. So, just do as much reviews as you feel comfortable. Whenever you fail an item - make a note on it.
2700!!! I didn’t even think it could get that high… Thanks for your response. As far as taking notes, I was seriously thinking of making a journal in Japanese and using some of the words I learn each day in it. Now with you suggesting this I will put it into practice.
I took a look at your profile and I see that you have almost 500 apprentice items. That’s way too many. With that many apprentice items, you will get overwhelmed with reviews.
Your main goal should be to get your number of apprentice items down to a manageable number. For some that number is under 100, for some that number is under 150, you have to find out what works for you.
There are 2 ways you could go now. One way is to reset a few levels, down to a level that gives you a comfortable number of reviews, and then slowly add from there.
The other option is to use the reorder script and only do reviews from your lowest levels, let’s say level 1-5. Ignore level 6-20 and ignore your total number of reviews. Just concentrate on getting through your reviews from the lower levels and get them out of the apprentice queue. Remember that your goal is to get your number of apprentice items to a comfortable stage. Once you’re done with level 1-5, you can work on your reviews from level 6-10. Only those levels, ignore levels 11-20. Once your’re done with those and get your number of apprentice items down, you can do reviews on the higher levels. Rinse and repeat until your apprentice level is where you would like it to be and until you can go through what’s left in your queue.
And DO NOT add any more lessons for now. Just don’t. Not until your number of apprentice items is down where it should be. And from now on, never ever ever add lessons when you have pending reviews. And never add lessons when your number of apprentice items is too high. That will just dig you in deeper.
No, it’s not a problem, IF and only IF you do your reviews. I average around 10 days per level, I do maximum 20 lessons per day, and I have about 150-200 reviews per day.
My number of apprentice items seldom jumps over 150. Keeping your number of apprentice items down is the key to keeping your number of reviews down. If you want to do 10 days per level, and if there are 150-200 items per level, you have to do 15-20 lessons per day. If you don’t do your reviews down to 0 every day and if you don’t keep an eye on the number of apprentice items, things can get out of hand fast…
The only way to have that many apprentice items pile up is if you’re getting less than 66% accuracy regularly or you’re ignoring vocab via reorder scripts.
Considering that fact that there are 452 vocab items out of 488 in Apprentice I’d say it’s the latter.
My personal rule is Apprentice around 100 and Guru around 500. I’m doing about 10 days per level and also have around 100 reviews per day depending on whether I’m doing new level items or not.
This is excellent advice. Just stop everything until you get that Apprentice count close to 100 AND the Guru count close to 500. The latter will inflate as you move items out of Apprentice and will take longer to clear, but if you don’t you’ll get slammed with huge review sessions.