Ok, so obviously I’m a n00b to this forum - I wanted to contribute my thoughts after checking my own progress graph, but I can’t even figure out how the hell to find it! How are you all accessing this graph? Where is your progress logged like this?
Thanks in advance for your patience - I’m now very curious to see what mine looks like, as I’ve had a couple long breaks (one, notably, where I didn’t realize that my mobile app version was discontinued, so I just thought “Wow, I guess level 6 requires you to burn literally every single item you have before you level up? Seems suddenly harsh” because I was reviewing and reviewing and getting everything right and not progressing at all, whoops ) punctuated by pretty quick, focused work, so it would be interesting to see how that averages out.
You supply it with you WaniKani API key, then under Progress you can go to Level-up for that graph. There’s a bunch of other interesting statistics too, like a visualisation of which kanji you know for each JLPT level for instance.
Thanks so much! Very interesting resource for sure! With that in mind, here is my own graph. As you can see, it basically boils down to “Am I paying attention to WaniKani right now?” - and if the answer is “yes” then my progress is generally very quick, and if not . . . well
This is not surprising, as I am autistic, and this is my way of learning. I can blast through things and retain very well when I’m focused, and then there are other times where life gets in the way, or another interest has my attention, and WK sits on the back burner for a bit. Everyone is different, everyone learns differently and at a different pace, and that’s fine.
(Also, seems it was level 7, not level 6 where I thought “Wow, WaniKani’s progression curve suddenly just got EXTREMELY steep!” because my app was discontinued)
True - a long time on level 4 is probably common as folks decide whether to continue on or not. No shame in anyone taking their time on a financial decision.
I would argue though, if it takes say 6 months to complete the first three free levels, is WaniKani really for you? It would take a big change in prioritization to make it worthwhile.
(the ‘you’ here is a general you, not you specifically)
Oh yeah, agreed - and a change in prioritisation is exactly what happened for me, I got serious enough to justify spending money every month
Just saying that lv3→lv4 gap should probably be disregarded if it’s disproportionately large, there are a bunch of reasons someone might choose not to go for a subscription even if they might want to or be serious enough about learning. It’s not as if WK is the only resource available after all.
Yeah yeah, everybody should study on their on pace and all, but just make sure you’re not taking things too easily, know your limits and maybe try to push it a little. I already know I get pooped when my apprentice goes over 100 items, so when it gets to that I’ll just slow down and study grammar and stuff.
I’m definitely not in a hurry, but I think it’d help you to build a schedule, even if it is a very slow one (ie 3 lessons a day or 5 every 2 days, with reviews done daily) that would probably take around 30 minutes a day, maybe an hour at most if you dedicate more time to each item or are slower at reviewing.
If I were you, I’d look at options other than Wanikani.
Wanikani only teaches you kanji and some vocab to go along with the kanij.
It doesn’t teach you the most common words or anything like that, it only teaches you words out of context that use the kanji that you’re learning, even if many of those words are old fashioned or super rare.
It’s not a one stop shop for becoming literate in Japanese. You need to study grammar and non-kanji vocabulary on the side too.
This doesn’t really matter if you just like knowing different kanij, but if your goal is to be able to eventually understand the language, then I think you’ll get a lot more mileage from skipping Wanikani and studying with something else instead. That way you don’t need to spend $200+ on an SRS that you barely benefit from.
You can learn kanji by exposure while reading a free grammar guide, like Tae Kim’s, or Maggie sensei’s. In the beginning, knowing basic N5-N4 grammar will be way more useful than knowing 200 random kanji.
If you want to focus on Kanji, then you can look for other resources that don’t lock you into a schedule like Wanikani does. There are a few of them and they are all cheaper than Wanikani.
I don’t think I would have kept using Wanikani at three months per level. There’s a lot of stuff to learn out there that doesn’t cost so much money.
No, it is not acceptable. You will need to be punished. Please roll up your sleeve and insert your arm into the torture machine until you feel the clamp bite down on your wrist.
You’ve had helpful replies already, but I’ll add another slowcoaches perspective.
I am going pretty slowly - roughly a level a month, and I think I am happy with that, because a) I plan to get lifetime next time it is on sale, b) it isn’t my only Japanese learning activity*, c) I have a full time job, a kid, and I still want time for reading / TV / downtime, d) this is just for fun, I don’t have a trip/career change etc pending.
What I have focused on is trying to get the best out of my slow pace - I don’t want to be wasting the limited time I can spend on wanikani. My tests for this are: do I think I am retaining/able to use elsewhere what I learn here? Am I making the most of the SRS system? Are the mnemonics etc working for me?
The answer to those questions is currently yes, with qualifications. Fine tuning my approach to the SRS has been the hardest thing, I’ve found that, even at my slow pace, I still want to do multiple batches of reviews a day, this is partly because I work well in short bursts, and partly because that maximises the early stages of the SRS. If I do lessons at breakfast time I can do reviews after lunch, and again in the evening. If I don’t get through those first reviews in the first day I am much more likely to make mistakes on them. Mistakes aren’t the end of the world, but I want to minimise unnecessary ones, so I can see which mnemonics/items I am having genuine trouble with.
*I am not necessarily content I’ve got the rest of my Japanese journey right btw, but I think that problem is unrelated to WK.
When I started using Wanikani I wanted to go through it as fast as I could, so I did all my lessons and reviews as soon as they popped. Since I started using Wanikani when I already had some (very minor) background in Japanese, the first few levels were really easy. However, the fast pacing meant that I sometimes found myself with hundreds of reviews per day, and Wanikani became like a chore to me, instead of being a fun thing I do to pass my time.
I’m on my 3rd reset at the moment and I decided to take my time. Some days I skip my reviews because I have no time to focus. I try to keep myself below 60 apprentice-level items at all times. It’s very slow, but also I don’t have the stress to do reviews every day and I feel like I am enjoying doing this again after about a year during which I had to force myself through reviews and lessons.
I say take your time and enjoy the ride. Don’t let other people’s fast pace stress you or make you think that you’re not doing it right
I mean you can go at any pace you want. It isn’t particularly efficient though since there is a reason why the SRS has the interval it has, in order to reinforce kanji and make you not forget them. Just do the reviews every day and you’ll be fine. We all have different goals and priorities in life, there are few rights and wrongs. I would however get tired of WK if i went at that pace personally. 10 days/ level is fairly comfy (which is the pace I’m going at). Imo the best pace which it’s both efficient and comfortable, but you are different I’d guess.
Consistency is far for important than speed, in my opinion. Whatever speed makes it comfortable for you to get some practice in every day is the right speed.
) punctuated by pretty quick, focused work, so it would be interesting to see how that averages out.
