There’s no way to dm each other on this site, huh? If you have reddit, I’m on reddit with the same username. (I use the same username for literally everything)
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There has been a ton of great stuff here but I thought I’d throw this out:
It took me 157 days to do level 7 because I got so stressed with school that I would open wanikani, see the review count, and give up. I was going to stop but I ran into some Japanese in the wild (手, 上, hiragana, and a bunch of other kanji I didn’t know) and I realized I knew so much !more! than when I started. I worked myself back into it, not adding lessons just trying to learn anything and I don’t care how long it takes anymore because I’m still learning even if it’s not fast.
As for the accuracy, you may be interested in the video I liked below. It is pretty much saying if you can associate random info (like and unfamiliar kanji) with something you do know/have experienced, your brain will say ‘ohh this is important! Let me remember it’. Since I started closing my eyes in lessons and really visualizing the stories/creating my own if the provided one doesn’t work I’ve jumped from ~70% to 80-90% on my initial review after lessons so maybe it works ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I hope you find joy in the learning, if you can have fun learning then you will keep coming back and improving!
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I LOVE that idea!
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Have you tried using the synonym option and adding the Hungarian word that you can remember? The advantage of the way you currently are doing it is the english reinforcement you get so I guess its based on your goals
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I wish there was ;-;
and no I don’t have a reddit account unfortunately
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There are lots of posts on this thread and I don’t think I’ll be able to catch up but I’d like to comment on a couple of things.
If you want to keep a minimum level-up speed, you should follow this rule, but it’s also possible to do your reviews in small batches and keep a level-up speed of 8 or 9 days, which is still pretty good. That’s how I did things up to level 12 or something. I had to slow down a bit now, I’m getting lots of reviews without actually doing new lessons (lots of leeches).
It’s only natural to forget things the first few times you review them. When you get them wrong, re-read the mnemonic and picture it in your head all over again. Don’t worry about it 
I think what you’re going through is a side effect of the gamification system WK uses. I think it’s OK if you’re getting motivated by the idea of reaching level 60 as quickly as possible, as long as you don’t cheat to get there and don’t get overwhelmed by it. But keep in mind that your revision pile will build up progressively and keeping the level-up rate from the beginning might not be realistic if you have work, studies, family and/or other responsibilities, so don’t let this idea of reaching level 60 get to you. You seem to have a balanced study routine, so just keep doing what’s working for you!
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Don’t stress so much. Don’t rush yourself. Don’t worry about level 60. Don’t stop doing your other studies. WaniKani can be very time consuming and maybe even addictive. Do your best to stay on top of it, but remember it’s OK to get things wrong. We all get things wrong. As they say, it’s about the journey, not the destination.
Set smaller goals. Don’t worry about how long it’ll take you to get to level 60. Think about how long it’ll get you to level 10. Even if you get things wrong, 10 is just around the corner for you. Then 20, then 30. To be honest, it’s around level 30 to 40 that WaniKani has really paid off. Go for 60, sure, but the stuff you learn after that point is more… I don’t want to say niche. But from my experience, I saw the biggest leap in my ability to read and understand Japanese going from level 10 to about level 30 (before level 10 was a lot of stuff I knew).
Definitely stay on top of your grammar though. Keep going with Pimsleur, I’ve heard good things about it. Good luck.
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It will take some time to do this for previous items, but what if you added synonyms in Hungarian to the hard words? I would recommend doing some research to make sure you are translating the more abstract words correctly, though.
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You could connect on Discord, or another platform that allows DMs first, and exchange information there.
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Hi !
Sorry I didn’t take the time to read all the replies so I might repeat something already said here.
I had the same reaction as you: having fun doing things my way, and then reading the forums about maximum speed / efficiency, and instantly feeling bad about myself.
In the end I decided of my own rhythm, using what I learnt about the system to be a bit more efficient when I can / want to, and chosing to ignore it when it doesn’t work for me.
I don’t usually review three times a day… I usually do 2 times when I can, which is not optimal, but it’s still good progress, since it’s almost every day. I found some regularity in my own way, and I make slow, but steady progress. And I’m having fun ^^
Whenever I get frustrated, I look back at all the progress I’ve made… And I try to not look at the forums too much when there are posts about people going fast ^^;
Hope you find the right rhythm for you, and that you get your fun back !
Welcome to Wanikani ^^
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Something that may not be so obvious when starting out here, is that some of the people racing, are learners that already have studied kanji in other ways and are transitioning to Wanikani. I am one of them, and I’m using some of these techniques to catch up with my actual level a bit faster.
As a beginner failures should be embraced and you actually do not want to go fast, as this is more likely to overwhelm you… Like really overwhelm you. Failing cards is preventing you from going faster than your mind is able to keep up. When you fail a card, it doesn’t mean that you are doing something wrong. It just means that you need more time with that card.
The beauty of SRS systems like Wanikani is that it will automatically focus your study time where it is needed, on the cards that you don’t remember well, so you spend your time efficiently. The brutal part about SRS systems is that they will focus on the cards you don’t remember well, which basically means that most learners feel they are doing terrible, because the cards you see tomorrow, will be the cards you failed today. Again you are likely to have trouble remembering them, because they are still the cards you have not internalized, yet. Think about the 50% cards you just remembered. They are quickly heading for Guru status and you are only seeing them occasionally. This is stuff you have already learned! That is awesome! Think about the 50% you learned, not the 50% you haven’t, yet. You knew none of those when you started.
Tl:dr; You are doing great, just keep going and let Wanikani do it’s awesome magic. If you keep at it long enough, you will get to level 60, but more importantly, you will be learning real Japanese every step of the way!
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it’s a tangerine
Posting this one again. 
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I dunno, that’s what we teach kids here, tangerine = みかん
Never encountered ポンカン here yet though, maybe I’m just ignorant 
It’s only the fifth-most widely grown citrus fruit in Japan, so I guess that’s not terribly surprising. Especially since mikan, in first place, has a total cultivation area which exceeds second through fifth added together by a factor of three.
Still, it’s not a direct correlation - tangerines are anything that’s a hybrid of a mandarin with something else, while a ponkan is specifically a mandarin-pomelo hybrid. Also, mikan aren’t stritctly mandarins either - the mikan is Citrus unshiu, while the mandarin is Citrus reticulata, but hey, they’re similar enough.
Bottom line, though, is that tangerines and mandarins are different.
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TIL the correct english for みかん would be mandarin
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Your goal is to become a fluent reader of kanji, not to beat Wanikani.
There are a few niche scenarios where a mistake could hold you back on the cusp of a level-up and lose you time when you’re genuinely ready for new content, but in practice that rarely happens. (Especially since level-ups don’t require all items at each level to be guru’d. Just most.)
Ninety percent of the time, a wrong answer is just letting the system do its job of putting kanji you really don’t know well enough yet into more frequent rotation, so that you can practice them until you do.
Especially those initial post-lesson reviews? Unless you’re trying to speedrun the site, which is completely pointless, they don’t matter. The whole goal there is to flag what stuck immediately from lessons, and what didn’t. If you do big batches of lessons, there’ll probably be ones that didn’t.
There used to be, then someone went and spoiled it for everyone…
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(´ ᨓ `)
thats really sad
Dm would have been such a useful option here ;-;
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You’ve already gotten a ton of advice here but I would say the main thing you should do is do whatever fits into your schedule. So what if you can’t do it every hour on the hour? You mught end up less efficient than the people who blast through and get to level 60 in less than a year, but learning Japanese isn’t about others. If you can persist, then keep on going! Progress is progress.
Failures are frustrating and especially if you read this forum where some people have averages significant above 95pct throughout their entire wk life, but there is no need to care about what they get.
Good luck!
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