Learning Faster

[lunarman52]

I’ve been studying Japanese for roughly five months and now I’ve got nothing but free time on my hands. I want to learn the remaining 2000 Kanji in about six months. Do you think it’s feasible. What would my recall be like if I studied that quickly?

[Leebo]

I think it would be important to keep in mind what you mean by “learn” in this case. I think it would be possible to cover 2000 kanji in 6 months, if we were just superficially talking about knowing one or two meanings for each one, and one or two readings for each one.

So a very broad knowledge base.

But you wouldn’t have a very deep knowledge base.

In order to go deep, you need to spend a lot of time reading, learning more of the difficult or less common words for various kanji, etc.

That probably can’t happen in 6 months.

EDIT: And I’m talking about generally. As Pep95 points out, WK pace is time constrained.

[TheFlaminMunch]

That is unfortunately not possible on Wanikani. For every level you first get half of the available lessons. Then the SRS will force you to wait every time before you can repeat your review.

Apprentice 1->2 = 4 hours
Apprentice 2->3 = 8 hours
Apprentice 3->4 = 23 hours
Apprentice 4->Guru 1 = 47 hours

This means that you can get half of your lessons done in 3 days and 10 hours. After getting guru 1 on certain items, you get the other half of the lessons that are based on those radicals and kanji from the previous half.
So in total every level takes at least 6 days and 20 hours if you do everything perfectly, which results in exactly 205 days. But that means almost perfect reviews, which I guarantee you is impossible. I’d like to refer you to @jprspereira 's masterpost. He came pretty close.

My Journey of 368 days (+ The Ultimate Guide for WK )

The Ultimate Guide to Wanikani Become the best version of your Wanikanian self. Heads-up: this Guide is really longgggggggg. You can read it all in one go, but there’s no need to if you don’t want. Think of it as the place to come to when in doubt/need of help. Thanks for checking this out <3 Table of contents

1. Why you should read this.

Dear awesome person, Welcome to this journey of learning 2027 kanji and 6303 words! Knowledge, together with a great feeling of achievement awa…

[jprspereira]

So in total every level takes at least 6 days and 20 hours if you do everything perfectly, which results in exactly 205 days.

Certainly you meant a different number? Because that’s not possible.

[TheFlaminMunch]

I’m talking about completing every level, not burning every level. That would add 5 months and 3 weeks, which is 171 days. Plus the original 205 is 171 days??? Uh

EDIT: Woops small mistake, it should be 410? Wait…

EDIT 2: 6 days and 20 hours is 164 hours, times 60 is 9840, divided by 24 is 410?! How did you do it?

EDIT 3: Oh wait the fast levels…

[swagspamswag]

I’m sorry to say that the answer to your question is a simple no.

At least in regards to long term learning. I’m pretty sure you can learn 2000 kanji characters within the next 6 months if all you do is cram–but that’s a challenge in itself. I don’t think it will be of any use to you if you are unable to recall the reading/meaning of said 2000 kanji when you need it most. You need to learn vocabulary and grammar. Perhaps you would like to be able to have a conversation with a Japanese native, you would need to practice speaking and listening. You want to play games in Japanese? Then you will need to work on your reading skills too.

I think that you are under the assumption that learning as many kanji characters equates to mastery of the language. That is hardly the case. Thinking in such manner is no fault of your own, I have once had similar thoughts myself. Learning a language really consists of learning various components which make up the whole–that is mastery (or even proficiency) in the language which you wish to learn.

[Kumirei]

Regular levels take 6 days 20 hours = 164 hours
Fast levels take 3 days 10 hours = 82 hours
The fast levels are 1, 2, 26, 46, 47, 49-60
There are 16 fast levels and 43 regular levels
The regular levels take 7052 hours in total
The fast levels take 1312 hours in total
That is 8364 hours in total to reach level 60
That is 348 days 12 hours

[jprspereira]

EDIT: Woops small mistake, it should be 410? Wait…

EDIT: 6 days and 20 hours is 164 hours, times 60 is 9840, divided by 24 is 410?! How did you do it?

Since the radical update, there are:

• 19 fast levels
• 41 normal levels.

19 x 3d10h + 41x 6d20h = Fastest speed possible.

Obviously, this is not recommended.

[Kumirei]

Since the radical update, there are:

• 19 fast levels
• 41 normal levels.

Oh really? Which are the fast levels now?

[TheFlaminMunch]

I didn’t know anything about the ratio of fast to normal, but thanks for clearing it up.

[TheFlaminMunch]

19 x 3d10h + 41x 6d20h = Fastest speed possible.

So 345 days and 5 hours

[Kumirei]

Minus 3d 10h since you don’t have to finish level 60

[jprspereira]

Oh really? Which are the fast levels now?

My Journey of 368 days (+ The Ultimate Guide for WK )

The fast levels are 1, 2, 41, 43-44, 46-47, 49-60.

So now level 26 is no longer a fast level, but 41, 43 and 44 are. I haven’t checked this with an actual user yet, but Koichi did seem to agree with the levels (but could not confirm it).

[Kumirei]

omg I’m at the fast levels all of a sudden