I see a lot of people here worried about how fast they’re going, and how they’re letting lessons pile up. I’d say don’t worry - take all the reviews but only take new lessons when you want more.
The first time I used WK I just dived in did all my lessons and reviews as fast as they appeared. I did great at first, but eventually I started doing ‘bad’ (about 75%) and that just depressed me and I stopped logging in as often and eventually just gave up.
Two years later, I’ve restarted and I only take new lessons when I get bored. I’ve got 100 lessons waiting, but that doesn’t bother me. Just do your reviews. Whenever the reviews start to get boring I just do another 5-15 lessons (depending on how ‘new’ they are) and just do reviews for a day or two, then do more lessons.
Yeah, I’m not going to learn as fast, but I have no burning need to learn as fast as possible, and this is a lot more sustainable for me (especially compared to those two lost years). Basically, if you don’t have an external need, there is no reason to get your number of lessons down other than your comfort factor. And it’s way better to take it slow than burn out and stop.
My average level up time is 7 days, 2 hours, 15 minutes. Only 150 reviews in WK and another 200 in KameSame is a very light day.
I’m loving it.
…
Would not recommend it to anyone.
Also it leaves very little time for learning everything else, so faster WaniKani will actually slow other aspects of learning drastically if you don’t have a crazy amount of free time, desire to learn the language, and great time management. I have the first two but lack the last, which I need to sort out, because you need all three to finish WK in a year without still having N6 level Japanese.
Slow and steady is certainly better than fast and furious leading to burnout. Still, going really slow may not be ideal for other reasons though.
Basically, once you’ve guru’d your kanji, immediately starting those vocab lessons is definitely preferable to ignoring them for a long period of time, since the vocab exist to reinforce the kanji you just learned. So, even if you still feel unsure about the kanji, doing the vocab lessons makes more pedagogical sense as you’ll easier remember the new vocab (having just studied the kanji) AND you’ll increase your retention of the kanji.
What I’m trying to say is that going super slow might also make it harder for yourself. It’s all about balance really.
But, yeah, speed running only really works if you have a lot of previous knowledge about Japanese to build on, making those lessons easier to digest.
Exactly the same thing happened to me. And here I am after two years, starting over. What I have in mind is to start at a slow speed and accelerate until I hit that sweet spot where it is neither boring nor overwhelming.
That’s a fair point - if you took three months to get through a single level, it would probably be counterproductive.
If you actually want to learn, I think the ‘just take more lessons as the reviews get boring’ should move you along as a reasonable pace without burning you out. I guess we’ll see in a couple months!
Basically, you could also do two different “tempos” of learning.
Because, it’s only really useful to do the second batch vocab lessons closer in time with the kanji being guru’d.
As for how long you take to do all kanji on a level, that’s much less important. Same for the radicals. You can take all the time you want. And it shouldn’t impact your retention in any way.
My current way of doing things is 5 lessons a day, as long as my Apprentice pile is less than 100. I’m gradually chipping at away at my lesson pile and not feeling too overwhelmed.
Go at the pace that works for you and keeps you learning. When you struggle and aren’t able to learn, slow down.
You aren’t using WK to hold the world record, you are here to learn. If you happen to get the world record while doing the process, then that is awesome. Learning is the key.
