Just had my most demoralizing review session ever

WaniKani
1

I just had a (probably temporary) lifestyle change that involves working out and eating healthier. The problem is that it’s having a negative effect on me, I’ve been super tired and drained every single evening since I started. Because of that I’ve been putting off reviews. I tend to do a lot worse when worn-out, so I elected to just let them build instead.

Well it was time to do them today. I didn’t want to let them build up any further, despite being as tired as usual. While I didn’t expect to do amazingly, I didn’t expect to mess up nearly everything and ending with a 43% either. Some of the stuff I couldn’t remember for the life of me turned out to be so simple when I got to see what the answer was. The degree of messed up my kanji recall goes to when I’m worn-out is staggering.

Mostly wanted to vent I suppose, maybe someone can relate.

9 Likes
2

Sounds like it’s time to go to McDonalds

8 Likes
3

Have you tried doing most of your reviews in the morning instead? My reviews are always at their worst when I’m stressed, tired or lack sleep. I once got a 0 when I had all three combined for a prolonged period of time.

Good job on the lifestyle change! I’m sure you’ll adjust soon enough. Baby steps! You’ll find out what’s best for you soon enough.

4 Likes
4

That… doesn’t really help.

4 Likes
5

You will feel super tired the first two weeks more or less, but after that you should feel pretty energetic and awesome!!

Keep doing it! The reviews can wait

2 Likes
6

I’ve gotten sub 50% before too, though in my case on 4h reviews…

My best advice would be not to let them build up and not to put them off. You start forgetting kanji very quickly without the SRS to reinforce them, especially those in apprentice. So by putting them off you’re guaranteeing you’ll do more badly whenever you do get around to the reviews. If you can, it’d be best to keep doing reviews on a regular basis. Even if you fail some because you’re tired, you won’t fail nearly as many I can promise you.

If your review pile is too large and you can’t cope with them on a daily basis, stop doing lessons for a while, and within a week or two you’ll have cleared out all of your apprentice and most of your guru pile by four weeks. That means less reviews, and easier afternoons. In the long term, adding back in lessons and pacing yourself better could mean you’ll have a manageable pile of reviews in the afternoon that you’re able to cope with better.

I definitely know what that feels like. The way I like to think about it is, the worst review sessions are the ones I don’t show up for. Remembering only 20% would still be 20% of those items learned, instead of forgetting nearly all of them. It’s easy to be mentally hard on ourselves, but learning a language is an amazing thing and you’re already level 15. Take a moment to give yourself a pat on the back for that.

7 Likes
7

That’s good to hear. I guess in the meantime I could try doing Japanese stuff in the mornings.

1 Like
8

I’ll try doing them in the mornings instead, would probably help. It’s pretty depressing how what’s supposed to be healthy and make you feel better is fucking me over in multiple ways now in the beginning, but I’ll give it a few weeks at least.

9

Yeah! And I meant do the reviews, who cares the accuracy?

Your body is ajusting right now, take it easy :slight_smile:

2 Likes
10

Thanks for the pep-talk, it actually helps. That might sound a little sarcastic, but I mean it <3

2 Likes
11

Exercise is clinically proven to boost memory and cognitive performance, but eating healthy can be a shock to the system and doing both at once while trying to learn a language takes willpower. Some research says that willpower is like a muscle and just like the ones in your body it’s being put under stress at the moment so until these actions become habits you will find things a little more difficult.

Keep going, and try not to fixate too much on your review scores. Since taking a long break mine have gone from high 80s to as low as 36%, which was a shock to my ego. But there’s no sense giving up.

Oh, and make sure you’re getting enough iron, b12, and folic acid to avoid vitamin deficiency fatigue/anaemia; and good fats plus omega 3 (fish oil pills) to help with your brain growth.

5 Likes
12

Any time friend.

13

Thank you, I’ll try to keep that in mind. Glad you mentioned the omega 3 pills, I always forget taking those even though I have plenty.

1 Like
14

How many items? That sounds rough! I agree with this sentiment though. Being tired in the morning is entirely different to being tired at night. At night, we’re grumpy, not in the best mood. Morning time is far more likely to go well.

15

I’m also trying to lead a more healthy lifestyle but I end up getting physically and mentally destroyed on the days that I work out.

So far I’ve been doing ok by avoiding doing the lessons at night, when I can’t really concentrate. I try not to let the reviews accumulate.

I’m only at level 3, but having some quiet time to really focus on the lessons has been helping me not screw up much when its time for the reviews.

1 Like
16

In a similar boat actually. I had to go into Vacation Mode because I was so busy with college assignments and finals. When I came back two weeks later (yesterday) I failed like 80% of 300 items. Don’t worry though. I’m sure you’ll adapt and get back into the grind.

17

the problem is you letting them build up. srs is supposed to show you something just when you’re at the brink of forgetting it. the newer an item, the higher the chance to forget.

never let stuff build up.

18

rookie numbers

19

If time doesn’t fix your energy issues, try taking out the exercise (if it’s intensive, that is, as you still want to be exercising you body to keep your blood flowing lol). Sometimes doing too much exercise, especially if you’re not adapted for it, can cause issues. If you’re on a healthy diet, food should be no issue. Often when you feel like crap after doing something ‘healthy’ it is because your body finally has the chance to get rid of toxins and crap like that (which isn’t a fun experience, but ultimately is good).

I just got < 50% on one of my reviews today and it was pretty sad. I was in a bad mood, which likely contributed. It’ll pass, and so should the issues for you :slight_smile:

1 Like
20

I have a lot of these experiences. Not always down to 40%, but it happened and will happen.

in this community there seem to be a few extraordinary individuals who actually make it in the min possible time. But I don’t think this is what mere mortals can do.

A mere mortal is defined for me as a person who go a life besides japanese. Family, work, exercises and so on.

If you are like me, then being tired makes your reviews go worse. You brain needs energy, and if you changed your nutrition, your body needs to adjust. If you have drunk 2 litres of coke each day, you are suddenly missing that tons of sugar. You’ll feel tired. Your whole body - including the brain - starts to preserve energy.

Other thing is, when you start to learn a lot of new things. Your brain will mix them up. Especially in settings like WaniKani something called “memory interference” is a big problem. So more tired you are, so more this is a problem. So more new things your learn, so more this is a problem. In fact, I have a lot of trouble with that every time I start learning new content. I mix up even old and usually well known items.

Also, if you start to get frustrated in a session will not help you, but make things worse.

I still have my bad days, but I felt since I just “let go” of these feelings and accept that it will happen, I feel much better. It’s not about you beeing stupid. Don’t compare yourself to anybody else here. It’s about you beeing tired today, had a bad experience at work or what not. Maybe just feeling the winter blues. It’s perfectly normal and it’s part of the learning process. The only solution is to just go on, because in the end you’ll learn it.

WK has that gamification thing highlighted, and it feels like we would lose if we don’t make our %, because we feel like we’d win, if we make it. In the end it’s not a game, it’s about learning a language. Don’t give a damn about the % and look forward to an opportunity to prove how quickly you can re-learn these old items.

All in all, you are lv 15 apparantely and still on the road to learn the language. That’s 15 lvs more than the rest of the world. Just go on.

Sorry for the long answer, I just feel the same all the time!

4 Likes