When I started in 2020, I wondered could I be done with this in 2, maybe 3 years? I eventually realized that more than 10 levels per year was a bit of an unrealistic goal, maybe not if I focused solely on WaniKani but doing things like KaniWani and BunPro was well, less so. So with that, I am on schedule, about to reach level 50. I pretty quickly realized that properly learning Japanese is a work for a decade, not something done overnight. But how slow is this process on average?
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Depends on where you put the bar I guess. Personally I prefer to focus on the journey rather than some far away objective. At your level youāre probably able to engage with real Japanese, no? If youāre not already doing it then I urge you to try, it will always be tricky at first but with the kanji and grammar that youāve been studying for these past years you should find that you can do quite a bit already.
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I think that it all depends on the person and their circumstances.
Itās totally possible to finish WK in a little more than a year, but sometimes life just intervenes 
I joined in early 2016 and only managed to get to level 60 at the end of last summer. My fault entirely; I could have gotten there much sooner if I just kept myself together, but oh wellā¦
My point is that this is not a race ā itās not about how long it takes to get there, itās about getting there. It might have taken me much longer than it could have, but the important thing is ā I did manage to get there. And so will you, as long as you keep moving.
So, my advice would be to just take your own pace and donāt worry about how fast or not you are going. In any case, best of luck with your studies! 
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Canāt speak for average, because that would be a very hard number to give, especially depending on your learning speed in general.
I can however, share my own journey just to give you an idea of my timeline.
I started Japanese in 2019, and WaniKani soon after, and finished WK last December, after coming out from a burn 3 year burn out. So 5 years total for me to finish WK.
In this time, at around level 35-ish I realized I could attempt playing games in Japanese (with very generous dictionary usage). This inspired me to really tackle my WK journey to 60, so I started doing 15 new words a day and zeroing out my reviews twice a day. This gave me a 10-11 day average per level. However, I realize that this is quite a high pace as I was reviewing close to 200 words daily.
At around Q3 last year, I started to read one chapter of manga every day to replace my gaming, it was more workable for my work load at the time.
Eventually, to current day, Iām starting to read faster and faster but only after reading something consistently (gaming, manga, whatever) every day for about a year.
Iād say it took me 'til year 3-4 to start to pick out words from sentences and just now in year 5-6 could I say that I can comprehend most sentences, and Iām also starting to use a J-J dictionary instead of J-E.
In addition to this, Iāve also been learning Korean since 2015 and that took much longer than my Japanese to see any progress (it was my first foreign language). It took me 'til year 5 to recognize words I knew from sentences and year 7-8 to fully understand spoken sentences from native media. Now in year 10, I can comfortably watch the Korean media I enjoy without subtitles, but only the media Iāve watched a ton of. When I watch stuff with more specialized grammar like medical or military stuff, my comprehension drops a ton.
Based on my experiences, even hitting level 30 or 60 in WK, most of my actual comprehension progress came from, you guessed it, actual comprehension. Learning from my Korean journey, I was expecting at least 10 years for comfortable comprehension. While I got ahead of schedule for Japanese, learning a language still takes a very long time to be comfortable with it.
I have also personally never been to Japan or Korea, nor have any native friends to practice speaking with, which is probably why I took as long as I did. But I did get there eventually for Korean and am currently getting there for Japanese.
TL;DR
Hereās my timeline:
Korean - 5-6 years to pick out words I knew (0 comprehension), 7-8 years to comprehend sentences spoken in native media, 9-10 years to really feel comfortable consuming my preferred media (inferring meanings of words I donāt know from context, not feeling like I miss every other sentence, etc).
Japanese - 3-4 years to pick out words I knew (0 comprehension), 5 years to comprehend an okay amount (50-60%) of sentences spoken in native media. Still waiting to see when Iāll comfortable consuming my preferred media, Iām expecting another 1-2 years (currently doing Bunpro to fill out my grammar holes).
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I am always remember what a therapist once told me, āIf you want to feel bad, compare yourself to others.ā Since then I totally stopped doing that, but I measure if I make progress with what I want to do.
So what is your goal? Are you getting closer to that?
And are you closer than you were last year?
I sometimes feel like I am not moving forward at all, and then I am listening to my favourite JP song and suddenly I finally understand some words without reading the lyrics and then I knowā¦ yup, I made progress! Or I read some manga in Japanese and at the end of the chapter I notice, I only had to look up 1 or 2 phrases, when before I needed help with every single sentence.
And that is actually good enough for me. No matter how long it takes, even if itās decades, as long as I notice I am improving, I am good with what I am doing.
Also not to rain on anyoneās parade, but learning a language is something you anyway do for life. When I went to school and first was taught the grammar rules for my mother tongueā¦ well that changed a lot already and I still have to learn new rules if I donāt want to sound like an idiot. I started to learn English in school and even though I can talk and write in English, I will never be perfect in the language as I am not actively learning it anymore. And with Japaneseā¦ well same. I donāt think anyone can ever reach a point and say āyes, done with Japanese! did it!ā like you finish a Mario game.
So even if some boast with speedrunning WaniKani or N1 within a yearā¦ and then? Can they really memorize everything perfectly, can they really be confident with the language and speak it like a native? Do they think the learning ends then? Even when you reach WaniKani level 60, there are more kanji out there, there is way more to study. So never feel like you are going too slow, if you are comfortable with your speed.
Itās a journey for you and you have a personal goal that you want to achieve. And really, let me pass you on the advice again: never compare yourself to others, unless you want to feel bad.
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The point might not be about SRS, vocab list, or grammar list; but practical skills. How are you with any of those you care about?
Getting practical somewhere midway in 5 years might not be so bad. But in 10 years, I still feel somewhat limited. Regardless of whether WK in 2, 5 or 10 years, yeah.
Still, WK being a reason, I got more Japanese in 5 years than Mandarin in 15 years, but JP slowed down after that, nonetheless.
If you are determined, do you best no matter how long it takes. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow, imo. (Rather than truly just slow and steady.)
The real answer of whether 2, 5, or 10 year, or something else, can be found from WaniKani > Level 60 Celebration You might take a look as a 50-ish.
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My Japanese is shockingly bad for how long I have done it. I can read kanji pretty fine but my grammar is at best N4 level and not sure could I even enter an N4 exam with confidence.
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All the more reason to start reading IMO. Itās easier to assimilate grammar in meaningful context.
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ABBC/BBC time!!! (absolute - beginner bookclubs!)
and if you start reading now you can join in the [summer solstice readathon!] (š· Spring Equinox 24-hour Readathon)
and not to worry if you are starting out, itās open to all
some people are doing graded readers just starting out, others are like wizards or something magical to everything in between.
awesome resource if you are looking for stuff to read (beyond just wk clubs)
It took me 6 years to get through wk because this platform is IMO awful for SRS - when they kept breaking scripts (and donāt listen to their userbase - see other competitors, marumori, bunpro, etcā¦) finally ditched and finished my wk over on kitsunā¦but I did it (even if wk doesnāt give a ā¦ ) I never reset and always did my reviewsā¦this system needs some serious help.
Thankfully kitsun has a way to manage leeches and an undo button and a summary page (didnāt have to wait 19 days). It just takes time. If you are plugging along and always moving forward and its working for you keep at it (you can do it even if itās not via wk) 
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