So I did some math based on my current progress in wanikani. Based on my math, it’s going to take me about 5 years to get to level 60 at my current pace. It takes me about a month to do one level. What can I do to speed this up? Am I just too old?
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Usually a level at maximum speed takes upto 6 to 7 days.
If you want to increase your pace you could do review’s at morning and evening to speed up the process.
But reaching level 60 at wanikani doesn’t mean you are good at japanese.
It is greatly encouraged to do other resources and you can also do Immersion if you want to improve fast and reinforce your kanji and vocabulary from wanikani.
But, in the end you should learn the language according to your end goal.
And have much fun as possible while doing it.
You should read this thread by jprsperiera, It gives an insight on the topic you are worried about.
Love the process not the goal.
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It’s much easier to remember kanji once you have something to hook onto them with. Once you learn the sounds that Japanese makes, and your head gets used to memorizing kanji, then you can speed up with more lessons a day, even if you can’t do that now.
OTOH, WK should be a background helper task anyway, with reading and listening/watching in Japanese being your primary initial tasks.
Also consider how much time a day you’re spending learning the language. If it’s like a full time job, with overtime, then you can get to a high standard in only 18 months and you’d need to do 25 lessons a day on WK to keep up. If you’re spending an hour a day, then at 5 lessons a day you’ll have finished WK long before you get to anything you could consider fluency.
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I hit level 60 this morning (yay me) and I started in August 2020. So that’s, what a little under 4 years? And I thought I was going slow. You can do it, bud. There’s so much more to learn while you’re going through wk. Kanji is just the tip of the 氷山
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Keep in mind that you’ll be able to start understanding (with effort) Japanese media long before you reach level 60, if that’s your goal for learning.
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If you’re taking about 1 month a level, it will take you quite long. I know this can be discouraging, but a routine which you can stick to long term (even if times get busy or you’re not feeling well) is far more important than speedrunning this app. If you burn out half-way and drop Japanese because it demotivates you, this is worse than going at a slow, yet steady pace. This beeing said: I do understand wanting to finish this app in a reasonable amount of time. This is why I think the most important thing is to find your personal sweet spot: How many reviews & lessons can you realistically do LONG-TERM and how many new lessons SHOULD you do to finish WK in a time-frame which is still motivating to you.
As for me: I originally wanted to do WK in about 2 years. This turned out to not work for me, as I work full-time and have an active social life, so I kept getting behind on my reviews. I am on this app 3 years now and I’m happy with my pace. It takes me about 2 weeks per level, but this is a pace where I still get a level-up often enough to keep me motivated, but also my reviews don’t explode to an unmanagable amount if I have a bad week (I will always do reviews, but if I’m really pressed for time, I’ll just do a few, not all and catch up once things settle down a bit).
Also: Life will get in the way. At least it does for most people. I took off WK for 2 or 3 month twice already, just because life was so busy.
Also also: Remember that while it is good to have a goal, language learning is a long endeavor, so it is really important to enjoy the process!
Best of luck to you! You can do it! 
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YES
and if you are going this slowly now and only level 7 YES
WK is not the best SRS and since you are only getting started
check out alternatives
I am on over 5 years and finally at level 55
WK sells can be done in a year, thought I’d make it in 2-3 but nope
never reset, never stopped doing reviews
Regret spending money on wk, the only saving grace is i paid for lifetime when i started so i didn’t waste monthly fees.
You can learn much faster using other resources that are not time/lock restricted
MaruMori
Anki FREE
Renshuu (has a free option can learn the kanji)
Plenty of other options as well
If I had to do it all over again, I’d learn the kanji in a year (skipping the vocab)
Would have been much faster (mind you harder to remember w/o reinforcing the vocab)
but at least reading would have been less hellacious looking stuff up by radical.
Then could just do the vocab I want/or add from books/as encountered or do a core 10k deck or something.
It’s still early - personally recommend getting out before in too deep.
Ultimately I migrated all my stuff away at level 44 to kitsun and it’s been wonderful.
Would have thrown wk out the window a when they broke everything the last time if it weren’t for having kitsun.
Best of luck to you
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Is it a problem if it takes you five years? Only you will know the answer to that.
By comparison, I started WK in 2014 and I have “only” reached level 49. I don’t think that is too long because there came a point where I enjoyed reading more than doing WK reviews and thus WK had fulfilled its purpose.
Don’t sweat it about level 60.
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Please don’t rush! It will only demoralise you when inevitably life gets in the way. Trying to minmax a life skill is only going to lead to misery anyhow. Rushing through Wanikani without actually putting the learning into practice isn’t an effective method of learning IMO.
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Keep in mind that the returns you get from WaniKani are far from linear, the first ~20 levels or so are by far the most critical, then as you get closer to ~40 you really start entering more niche content.
By the time you reach level 30 you should probably know more than enough kanji to start engaging with simple Japanese content (although you’ll need the grammar and non-kanji vocab to match). At one level/month that should take you a little less than two years.
This wkstats chart is always worth keeping in mind I think:
It doesn’t tell the whole story because there’s more to reading than decoding kanji, but you can see how much you’re getting from the early levels you’re currently doing compared to anything 40+.
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If you are really looking to accelerate, the key is increased repetition. I find the minimum number of review sessions I need to do to quickly learn new kanji or vocab is three per day. Four is even better. This is especially important when you have just done new lessons, or for when you get a review wrong. If you are only doing reviews once a day it’s going to take a lot longer.
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No matter how old you are, you’re never too old. I taught a 97 year old man, and he was the brightest student I ever had. He’s 102 now, and still going strong.
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second that. Failing a lot, and early on, is key to progress faster through WK. I’ve found that failing multiple times during lessons, especially when practicing recall with KaniWani, really helps to nail down those pesky readings. Good luck!
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! I’m not very far into my Wanikani journey yet, but already the everyday effort (doing my reviews & up to 15 lessons a day) is paying off. Found myself unconsciously reading and understanding the name of a Chinese restaurant as I drove past it the other day. I know some people just love goals, but I’ve learnt to enjoy processes. Learning Japanese, lifting weights, running marathons - just do the work regularly in a way that you can enjoy & manage & you’ll get there eventually
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