Is it a good idea to stop taking New lessons about every 5 levels and only do reviews for about two or three weeks. If you are keep learning new lessons as they get unlocked your apprentice and guru levels get filled with hundreds and you will be filling your brain with new kanji and vocabulary without letting the things you previous learned sink in. By not taking New lessons and only doing reviews for a few week you could slow down and let things sink in.
Itās not necessary, since the SRS will keep interleaving old items with the new ones. But if you find that it helps you in some way, go for it.
My own study habit was to review old levels on a rotating schedule (using the Self-Study Quiz script that I wrote for that purpose), which helps cement your old items and strongly learn your new ones more quickly.
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Well i havenāt added any new reviews since 3 days just to focus on the hardest kanji which are too difficult
just do what you want mate except for leaving wanikani for straight 5-6 days at lvl 10+ or you will fall into deep depression when doing 400+ reviews for 3 hours
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When I was leveling I would take a break every 5 to 10 levels and get my apprentice queue down to <5 and my Guru queue to <200.
It just helped to make sure I didnt have too many reviews in 1 day.
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I think generally the advice people give is to do things at your own pace, and not worry too much. Some people enjoy racing through the levels, doing new lessons immediately and relying on SRS to help retain them. Others take a more leisurely approach and space out the lessons over a longer period of time.
But yeah, itās probably a good idea to keep an eye on the number of apprentice and guru items. From what Iāve read on the forums, itās easy to get overwhelmed when youāre swamped with too many reviews. Stress could also be detrimental to learning, I think.
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Iām now learning level 16, and I took a break from lessons at the beginning of level 15 : I stayed 3 weeks at level 15 just doing reviews and battling leeches, and globally consolidating knowledge, before even beginneng the lessons of level 15.
Iām now much more comfortable.
I plan to āstopā like that every 5-ish levels, principally to take time to find and re-learn the leeches.
But I totally agree with @Memoria :
Perhaps take a little time to find what works for you. Itās a long roadā¦
Hope that helps.
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You can play it by ear to some extent if you want to too. If I started to feel overwhelmed, Iād just clear reviews for a bit until I felt ready to start picking up more lessons. This particularly helped during the later levels where you have a lot of items in the system and the levels are shorter, meaning if you go at full speed youāll be adding new items every 5 days or so.
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Thank you everyone for giving your opinion. I greatly appreciate it.
Isila-san, always remember that learning is not a competition but an adventure. (^_^) Do your reviews at your own pace. What I do is I keep my apprentice number to 100 to make reviews manageable. I just add 5 new words everyday so that I wouldnāt be overwhelmed. heheā¦ Gambatte ne~
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Opinions vary, but the key point we all tend to agree on is: do what works for you.
For myself, I tend to do lessons immediately, and I did not have issues ā¦ until I took a long break. Speaking for myself, Iād say it is more important to be exercizing your new knowledge outside of WK, and especially to be learning and practicing your actual Japanese (I.E. grammar, and additional vocab). I also now use KW (KaniWani) to review my vocab, translating from English into Japanese, which is a key skill you will need if you actually want to use your Japanese.
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I took a couple month break from new lessons when I hit level 24. So glad I did. Sure Iām now not as far as I could have been, but Iām not as overwhelmed now, which I feel makes this easier and stick better.
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