Joining the level 60 club after 350 days

WaniKani
#36

I use the browser dev console to manually reorder the lessons when leveling up so I can do the radical lessons first. So it’s a bit like using the reorder script, but only for lessons, and only on level up. The important part is that I don’t have any override script for mistakes.

I could have done it without any lesson reordering at all, it just saves time. For the first five levels, I actually did just power through the vocab lessons on level up to get to the radicals. I’m planning to do the last five levels with no reordering as well, just to prove it’s not necessary, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

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#37

At the time I hit level 60:

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Today:

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Yeah… Just 5 days later, my accuracy is not sticking around. 0.05% overall accuracy drop may not seem like a whole lot, but I’m getting a lot more wrong than I’m accustomed to. It’s all downhill from here. :upside_down_face:

5 Likes
#38

Congrats! Did you use a script or two to help things move along at that pace? I have found that some levels drag on for longer than they should. Just a couple of missed answers can hold everything back. And often times, the misses are not really misses; they are synonyms I just haven’t added yet or typos on my phone.

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#39

I’m currently level 22, and I haven’t missed a level up due to failed reviews since level 1, (before I got serious about WK), despite not using any userscripts. The trick is to just put more effort into learning the radicals and kanji, and be extra careful when reviewing level-critical items. It’s also helpful to know when reviews for level critical items are coming up, and get all other reviews cleared away the hour beforehand if possible. Luckily, there’s a large margin for error (at least until you hit level 41), since you can miss up to three kanji reviews per level without delaying your level up.

I also do WK on my laptop, not my phone, so presumably typos are less common. (I still miss reviews sometimes due to typos, but mostly just on vocab reviews. Although I did miss one of the kanji reviews due to a typo last week)

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#40

Hmm, even missing very few and doing lessons/reviews right away, I think level 4 took around seven or eight days. Based on OP’s average, it sounds like it should be closer to five days per level…

#41

It is best to take these statistics from wkstat
https://www.wkstats.com/v2

#42

There are about 15 so-called “fast” levels at the end that can be done in half time. Normal level minimum time is 6 days 20 hours, basically a week if you want to keep regular schedule and not wake up at 2am to not miss a single hour. The amount of effort to complete lessons and reviews at such speed could be equal to a full time job (of course it depends on person’s aptitude, motivation, and prior language knowledge).

#43

Ah, I did not realize there were “fast” levels at the end that influenced the average.

I checked wkstats, though, and levels 3 and 4 both took 13 days. I reviewed and learned lessons daily, though, and missed very few (all due to typos or things being marked wrong that were not really wrong). Why would it take so long? I was definitely ready much sooner as the majority are review at this point.

#44

Levels 1 and 2 are accelerated because the SRS timers are cut down by half. Levels 3 and 4 SRS timers are back to normal therefore a longer level up time is expected. Levels 3 and 4 are more representative of what would be your normal level up time than levels 1 and 2.

Edit: Leveling in 13 days when you miss only few items still seems long. There must be something else going on. I can’t guess what it is.

#45

Damn. Really odd, then. I have e-mailed support but welcome any other advice if anyone may know what is going on.

Thank you.

#46

What wkstat says about your accuracy? Perhaps we may get a better picture with these numbers. Please get both the reading and meaning values. The total number is meaningless because we need to get both meaning and reading right to pass a review.

#47

Congrats on coming back (if that’s what happened and you didn’t get to level 60 then go back to 1)! It says your last post was 6 years ago. I joined in 2013 but here I am at level 9 due to life happening.

#48

Thanks! I basically got to level 12 five years ago and then had kids, started a company, etc. Decided to just restart. Have studied Japanese many ways over the years, but kanji has always been the most neglected. Decided to finally see it through and catch up to my speaking (and beyond).

wkstats has over 98% for every category.

3 Likes
#49

These are excellent numbers. You should definitely level up in much less than 13 days. I am running out ideas.

#50

Are yo aware of scripts that allow you to choose radicals and kanji lessons ahead of vocab, and also do important reviews (radicals and second part of kanjis) as soon as they are there? If you know material already, it’s no that difficult to get level in 7 days, especially if you skip some vocab lessons (not recommended in general).
This guide was already posted in this topic, but here it is again, it describes how to go fast:

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#51

@NKD2L has about a right sounding level up time if they are only using WK once a day.

Day 1: Do lessons
Day 2: Get to apprentice 2
Day 3: Get to apprentice 3
Day 4: Get to apprentice 4
Day 5: Nothing
Day 6: Get to guru for radicals and unlock second half. Do those lessons
Day 7: To apprentice 2
Day 8: To apprentice 3
Day 9: To apprentice 4
Day 10: Nothing
Day 11: Finally level up

It is slightly faster than 13/14 days, but the difference can be expained if they don’t do all the lessons on the same day they do their reviews, or they don’t do all the lessons on the same day, or start at the EXACT same time every day so sometimes miss apprentice 3/4 reviews

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#52

Oddly, though, I am doing WK multiple times per day, usually. I will wait to hear from support and report back. :slightly_smiling_face: Thanks, everyone. Sorry to hijack the thread.

#53

If you do the critical reviews in a timely manner and don’t miss too many, you should have leveled up in around 7 days. Something is definitely wrong. If you send me your API key, I can look at your review history and try to figure out what went wrong later.

#54

Wow, 350 days! That’s amazing!

You know, my Wanikani journey has been a lot of ups and downs(at least, in terms of speed). Overall, I have enjoyed it, but I have had a few times where I didn’t do reviews for a bit and they piled up quickly.

(This post got really long so I put a TLDR at the end)

In the beginning, I was only doing it on the computer, and on the computer I often play games, so I wasn’t always focused on Japanese. The beginning levels were taking me like 20 days! I noticed there wasn’t an official WaniKani app so I think I just used the mobile website a few times. Eventually I realized there were some good third party apps. I didn’t understand why they didn’t have their own official app, but I saw that the community created some really good apps, and so I started using them. Doing reviews with the mobile app definitely helped me complete levels way faster. From level 10 to level 26 or so, I was finishing those levels in 8-12 days, except for the occasional longer level. This was great. Then from 27-36, I definitely started increasing my average time. As you can see in the photo below, I had several levels during this period that were above average. But after this period, it gets even worse. Level 37, 31 days. Recently hit a new slowest level, at 33 days on level 43.

Now, for anyone reading this that is worried about their speed, let me say something about that. I started this website with the idea that I could finish in about 2 years. Somewhere along the way, maybe around level 15-20, I realized, my average is about 2 weeks per level. It was probably a little less back then, but I used 2 weeks as an easy indicator. 2 weeks x 60 levels, is 120 weeks. That is already over 2 years. So along the way I knew it would take more than 2 years. But you know, I realized, that is okay. It’s not a race and I don’t have to finish in a year or whatever. I seriously applaud the OP for doing it in 350 days. If you are interested in Japanese and you like doing WaniKani, even if it takes you longer than other people, who cares. Unless you have some time constraint, the amount of time it takes should not matter.

Also, I should point out that the levels that took me longer to complete, I think most of the time it had nothing to do with the content on that level or anything like that. It was usually just like “I got lazy during level 37” or something like that. Honestly when I would not do it for a couple days, it was often difficult to get back into it. The reviews would pile and pile. I have had numerous times of 300 or 400 reviews, but there was specifically one time where I got to 1000 reviews, and man that was a challenge to break through. So sometimes taking a couple days off can make it difficult to get back into and clear out reviews.

Another thing I should point out, I think I have a bad approach to WK and even though I know about it, I still do this thing. Whenever I level up, I get all these new lessons, and sometimes I will just have a bunch of time to sit on my phone so I start doing all these lessons. When you do a ton of lessons at once, it can make your next days a little difficult. If you do, lets say, 70 lessons. Well then a little bit later you have 70 reviews to do, and if you get them all right, then you have 70 that will pop up again the next day or whatever. And when you factor that in with the reviews that are already piling up, it just adds up so quickly. So when I do a ton of lessons at once I always screw myself over for the next couple days. But sometimes I just want to get to the content for the level I’m on and so I just power through all the vocab from the previous level. I know there’s scripts so you don’t have to do all the lessons to get to the radicals for the next level, but then I’ll just end up with a backlog of vocab lessons, so I usually try to avoid that.

TLDR: Don’t worry about speed, its not a race. Look at how long some of the levels have taken me. I’m gonna be doing WK for over 2 years. Also, don’t do a ton of lessons at once, unless you can handle all the reviews at once.

This post got way longer than I anticipated but I hope someone reads it and can relate. We aren’t all hitting level 60 in 350 days. We all go at different paces.

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#55

You emailed support for that? I’m sure it’s not a bug in your system but just you not understanding the level up timings. I recommend reading the beginner’s guide before hassling the devs any further. My Journey of 368 days (+ The Ultimate Guide for WK 📖 )

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