Iāve been lurking for a while as well, and youāve encouraged me to join in. I have never raced, but at about level 30 found I was spending way more time on WK than I wanted to, and stopped doing lessons altogether for a few months. I kept up the reviews religiously, and got my apprentice down to below 50, although it still fluctuates up with missed reviews. I only do 5 lessons a day now, and only when the number of reviews due for the next few days is well below 100. This is a very scenic way to do WK, but has made it really enjoyable, with no pressure, and I feel I am really consolidating the kanji now. And then they added the āpractice recent mistakesā and āpractice recent lessonsā options. Even more scenic. I love it, and feel I am making real progress, rather than just rushing to 60.
Good luck to all those on the scenic route, and ä¹¾ęÆ to life balance.
Into level 12 now! 23 lessons left from 11, so it will take me a few days before I even start doing level 12 lessons. Iām at a good even pace right now and I am seeing vocab Iāve already learned, which must mean something is going right in my activity elsewhere. It is really satisfying when I get a new Kanji and I can learn it through reference to the vocabulary I already know.
Welcome new scenic route folk!
I think I figured something outāif I do 5 lessons before starting reviews, I chip away at a level much more quickly than if I try to do all the reviews before doing any lessons. I suppose that was obvious, but yāknowā¦
Congrats! 
Welcome new friends! Enjoy the views 
got to level 23 this morning ! lately, iāve been seeing a huge amount of enlightened items in my reviews and so many of them iāve got wrong. when they go back down to guru, at first, it feels a bit tragic haha but then i remind myself the goal is to genuinely know the words not just to pass WK as quickly as possible
so hereās to the other side of scenic-route-durtling: acceptance of retaking the route over and over again until you really know it
for the record, this is also something i only realized today 
but hey better late than never!
Made it to level 32! Took a little over 14 days. Itās been a busy level for me, so I didnāt get as much reading and textbook study done as I would have liked (and my main study log post will be a bit late 
), but I did get through lesson 27 of Minna no Nihongo and finished another translation.
The spring read every day challenge just started, so I signed up for that and inadvertently started a bit of a trend haha where a bunch of us are trying to read something in another language in addition to Japan every day. So Iām going to be spending a little more time reading in Spanish as well, hopefully!
Congrats on your level up, and yay reading challenge! Thisāll be my first time joining. Iāll keep in eye out for you in-thread!
Itāll be fun to have you! The thread is a nice little community of people. Itās a blast to follow along with it 
. Unfortunately I donāt really post much about my reading in there haha because I post my updates in the pro wrestling thread instead . But I do read everyone elseās posts, and occasionally chime in with updates and comments.
@fallynleaf @potatonaught oooo good luck in your reading every day challenge!! 
I would love to join one of these soon but i know the next month is gonna be super busy for me so maybe iāll join if they do a summer reading challenge when this one finishes (apparently on May 31!)
Did all my level 10 vocab lessons, so next lesson time Iāll start the Hell levels in earnest! 
So long for real Pleasant levels 
For a second I read that as, āSo long for real, peasants!ā and was prepared to feign offense.
It gets me too, every time 
I tried that for a week but it didnāt do any miracle for me lol I guess itās up to everyone to figure out the rythm that works with their brain
I found that what works best with with me at the moment is to do a set of 5 lessons in the evening, ~1h before going to bed, then in the morning I do my reviews that include the 5 new items, then later in the morning i do a new set of 5 lessons.
10 lessons per day is the max my brain can take, unless thereās lots of easy vocab that I already knew 
Hi friends! Joined yesterday but durtled my introduction because durtles gonna durt.
This is my second time trying to get through wanikani, and so far the scenic route has treated me much better than the study-as-fast-as-possible route. My next level up will surpass my first WK attempt!
Welcome welcome! Enjoy the journey 
Made it to level 33!
Took a little over 13 days this time, which is about standard. Iām now on lesson 29 of MNN, so almost four chapters into the second book, which is cool!
Iāve been managing to keep up with reading every day, too (in both Spanish and Japanese), though Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling has been doing so many shows lately, I havenāt had the time to read any manga between my wrestling translations haha . Iāve reached the point where Iāve SRSād enough wrestling vocab that I can actually read a fair amount of sentences in these show recaps without having to use Yomichan or another tool. Still adding dozens of new words from each show recap, though, so I still have a long way to go!
ę„ćļ¼ę„ććć ćļ¼ćć°ćć§ććļ¼
Sorry, I couldnāt resist
I feel like because of all the memeing around this vocab I already know it, and river+pork ateji composition is not a problem. So, thanks to all those who shared their fugu battle stories before!
In other news I leveled to 27, and today marks the day 10ā·ā· since Iāve last done some grammar.
My day job is eating a lot of time, so I normally just manage my normal schedule of 9 lessons and then zeroing reviews. I do hope I can get myself to do some other JP-related work on weekends though!
Last, hereās another photo from the scenic route:
oh boy, oh geez, this is exactly why I have the double-check script lol. so i can add things like this as a synonym and not lose overall progress
Dinged to level 12!
Learning kanji that Iām seeing a lot in native materials, but never got as far to learn while still in school. An exciting place to be!
Hey folks! Hereās another idea Iāve been trying out recently, which helps balance my review schedule to fill in gaps of upcoming reviews but without overloading myself with too many new lessons too quickly:
You might think of it in a āscenic routeā kind of way as, revisiting old friends. Basically, it amounts to āresurrectingā previously-burned items that ā despite being āburnedā ā I came across later on in my ājourneyā and just couldnāt remember. For example, I recently came across the word é³ during a grammar review on BunPro.jp, and I just couldnāt remember how to pronounce it as a vocabulary word (ććØ).
So I searched it up on WaniKani and found the pronunciation, which I had previously burned long ago. At the same time, I noticed that I had a day or two coming up in my WaniKani Review Forecast which only had a few reviews scheduled (for me, less then 15 or 20 makes for a āslow dayā; I prefer around 30-ish per day).
So, seeing as é³ is a pretty common word, and seeing as I had a spot of āfree timeā in my upcoming schedule, I decided to use the Resurrect button on the bottom of the itemās page to reset it back to Apprentice from Burned. And just for good measure, I also resurrected the related é³ kanji item, and a couple of related vocabulary items.
This has some nice advantages!
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Normally, if I spot a slow day coming up in my review schedule, Iāll do a batch of new lessons, since that usually indicates that Iām running low on Apprentice and Guru items. But what if Iām already going a little too fast and want to slow things down a bit? Well, instead of filling in the schedule gap with something new to learn, why donāt I fill it in with something old that Iāve unfortunately forgotten? Reviewing resurrected items (revisiting old friends!) is much much less stressful, has a nice āfamiliarā feeling, and eliminates any feeling of disappointment at having forgotten a so-called āburnedā item.
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At the same time, it balances out my review schedule with some low-difficulty, low stress items, so that I always have at least a handful of items I can review each day, which helps me keep up the daily habit of doing WK reviews, but doesnāt overload me with too many new items at once.
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It helps prevent me from āpowering throughā levels too quickly, which would deny me the enjoyment of Durtling the Scenic Route! Of course I could power through, but I donāt need to, nor do I actually want to. So, taking the time to ārevisit old friendsā Iāve forgotten seems like just as legitimate a way to spend my time learning Japanese as constantly always learning only new items!
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Probably other advantages I canāt think of right now, but thatās plenty enough for this post!
So, Iāve recently been doing this for a few other words/kanji here and there that Iāve burned but now forgotten. For me, itās a great alternative to only having the option to fill in gaps in my schedule with new lessons.
Hopefully this is a helpful idea for anyone else looking to fill in those gaps in your schedule to āsmooth it outā so you have roughly the same number of reviews per day. If you donāt yet feel ready to take on more new lessons, and youāve recently discovered some āburnedā items (especially if they are common words!) that you just canāt remember, feel free to resurrect them and even resurrect their related vocabs, kanji, or even radicals. Theyāll refresh your memory and on āthe second burningā, Iām sure they will stick with you much longer, yet they wonāt require much stress or effort to āget to knowā, since you basically already know them! Theyāre just like old friends!