Just posting to pat myself on the back. I’ve practised up to level 5.
Level 5 vocab was a lot harder than the first 4 levels. A few tricky words I always kept having issues with. But enough of that, 3 more levels done. Yay me!
Level 6 done and level 7 partially (Radicals + Kanji)
You know what? It’s not so bad. I keep getting 70-80% on my first pass, and the rest comes back quickly. If that can hold until level 10ish then I’m already halfway there (halfway towards starting the 2680 review pile, but shhhhh).
I also find myself having fun and more mentally ‘there’ now I spend time practising, while listening to a nice playlist, instead of doom-scrolling.
Got up to level 10 last Monday. I was feeling so good about my progress that I kinda stopped … progressing the rest of the week. It’s OK though, I got some good stuff done at work. Had some talks and now feel better about my place there than I have in years. I got an extended weekend with Monday being a national holiday (King’s day) and the week after another extended weekend with Monday + Tuesday off. (another national holiday on Tuesday).
Time to work some more on WK. Now at work on level 11. The higher level I get, the harder it does become. But there’s still a lingering feeling of getting reacquainted with ‘old friends’ which is a good feeling.
Studied up to level 12 yesterday. Today I thought: why not begin at the big WK queue with 2684 items. Turns out there were easily enough low level items to keep me occupied for several hours. Did 750ish reviews which got me up to level 8-9 items. Burnt a little over 400 items in the process. But most importantly: I got my review queue sub-2000 in one day.
Japanese is fun when you are making progress. Time to slay the beast!
Working on level 14 and got my review queue down to the 1500s.
So far so good!
Now refreshed up to level 16 and got the review queue down to below 1300.
I’m happy with the pace. And I have two more free days coming up! Sub-1000 possible?
Rehearsed level 17 and was feeling a long review session. I hit just under 900.
If I can hit level 18 and sub-750 tomorrow, that’d be super nice. I might even be able to hit the big ‘0’ next weekend if I keep it up. That’d be clearing the 2700ish queue in 2 weeks. 
I expect almost 0 retention on the items from level 19-20 since that’s where I got stuck last time.
- update: only rehearsed the Radicals + Kanji from level 18, but I did get the queue down to 636. I’ll take that as a win!
Haven’t rehearsed since the level 18 Kanji + Radicals. But I did get the queue down to 459 today. That’s something. Almost down to a manageable size.
Level 18 rehearsed and just 265 reviews left. It might actually be possible to clear the queue this weekend if I work hard at it!
Level 19 rehearsal complete and back to 347 reviews. Still some level 20 items to rehearse, but there’s only 33 of them yet. So I could get very close to 0 this evening.
After that practice level 20 and do the 49 lessons to get the actual 0/0
–edit–
Got it down to 60 reviews left before I hit my first level 20 kanji. So close!
Brother. CONGRATULATIONS!
Amazing, just no words how you managed to climb out of it. A standing ovation is in order!!
Please continue with the updates *violent handshake* xD
You got it mate!
Thank you! Good to see some familiar names still around. Wanikani is going very well now. I see that you’ve been doing very well too. I hope that I can keep it up to level 30 at least. That would be a very good ‘not too distant’ goal.
GO! GO! GO!
If only I could be there physically… I’d like shake ya and tumble ya all around xD
If anyone can do it it’s YOU. Remarkable consistency against ALL odds. Wow. Honestly if I saw 2,600 Reviews looking down at me… I’d have committed 切腹…
NOT YOU! King！
Nothing but respect, seriously. I just can’t imagine being this consistent despite the overwhelming pressure. Massive 尊敬
I think there’s three factors that made clearing the queue a lot easier this time:
- I have done it before last year, so I knew what to expect
- I divided it in a bunch of small goals that worked well to motivate me: Every day practice the Kanji + Radicals or Vocabulary of a level with the SelfStudy Quiz and work myself up the levels. Or lower the queue by 100 with it ordered by lower levels first.
- It helps that >1000 of them were burn reviews and retention of them was much better than expected. If the queue consists of lower level items then it’ll be a lot more reviews to clear it.
I hope other people in the same situation can use this strategy. I’m convinced it works a lot better than resetting levels.
Heyo, I just wanted to say hi 
Congratulations on the level up and on the great achievements you have under your belt
I’m also a fellow sumo enjoyer, who stumbled last year onto this stream and enjoyed what I saw. The Japanese bits and trying to read and listen to the wrestlers’ names gives a good boost 
(My familiarity/knowledge of sumo is very, very basic outside the basic rules, but that channel provides good explanations for almost everything )
Also, YOU GOT THIS 