Wow, your stats look good! All of those burned items! Iām jealous!
Good taste!! Iāve never seen Dragon Gate (mostly because I only have so much time haha), though Iāve heard some good things about them. And DDT is one of my favorite promotions! Theyāre sort of the promotion that got me into wrestling entirely, albeit a bit indirectly. My favorite promotion overall at the moment is probably TJPW, but I truly watch way too many (I regularly watch DDT, TJPW, NJPW, and AEW, as well as a fair amount of NOAH and occasional ChocoPro, and Iām in the process of catching up on Stardom). Suzuki-gun is a good choice of favorites! I really like Douki, but I think my favorite person in the faction is El Desperado. Definitely agreed on wrestling getting me through the pandemic, though.
Yeah, 100%! Even though I still canāt understand much of what I hear (unless it gets subtitled or translated later), itās amazing to me how much I am able to understand! Wrestling is such excellent immersion because you can watch it and enjoy it with even 0% comprehension, but the more you understand, the more it adds to your enjoyment, so itās a great incentive to learn. Like, Iām going to keep watching it regardless of my level of proficiency with the language haha, but because I have so much exposure to it, Iām constantly seeing words and kanji and grammar that Iām learning, which helps reinforce them, and it doesnāt feel at all like studying (where itās a lot of frustration and hard work to watch) because I donāt need to know the language in order to follow along like I would if I were trying to immerse with anime. Anything I understand is just a bonus as I watch.
Fellow level 12 here Iām a little slower than you at around 18 days the last two levels. I hit the 0/0 several times this level, which means Iām keeping up quite well.
Finished lesson 6 of Minna no Nihongo! I still have to do my grammar notes before I can move on, but I completed all of the exercises. Lesson 7 only has a handful of kanji that are new to me, so the vocab should go much faster. Iām looking forward to that! Lesson 6 was a breeze for the most part, though I did initially get tripped up by the use of the ć« particle with ä¼ć, haha!
This seems like the place for me. Iāve definitely been taking the scenic route. I supposedly started August 2016!! Hahaha. Iāve reset a couple times and fell off along the way, but I have continued to come back and keep trying to grind away.
Just levelled to six, it took me 58 days according to WKStats, it didnāt feel that long, because I was going particularly slowly through the level 4 vocab - it doesnāt feel like I got started on level 5 properly for a while. I am hoping to do the level 5 vocab slightly faster, so I can squeeze them in before I go on holiday!
Oh, you get to see everything you did before resetting?
I though it just said reset at the start, and the past levels vanished (or at least seen that on some)
Which one are you using that gives this effect?
Oh wait, I see now. You did part resets! The ones that put reset at start did full reset.
Oh yeah! I donāt think Iāve ever done a full reset or not. If I did, it was probably way earlier on. The highest I got was most recently around the mid 30ās before the JLPT got cancelled last December.
I study Japanese in my free time and there isnāt any sort of deadline for me to reach a specific level by a certain time like some people do (for school or career, etc) nor do I live in Japan.
This makes it super easy to just put studying on the back burner whenever other parts of life really need more attention. Hence why itās taken me this long. Haha!
But just gonna keep chugging along and hopefully we all can encourage each other to keep going no matter how fast or slow that is!
Iām doing it for the enjoyment, no other goal. Which is why I made this group.
We might stumble, we might fall, but we will get there in the end, even if we have to crawl
I think I might have found my group. According to wkstats Iām about 16 days a level, although Iām only on level 5 so I suspect that might go slower in future. So far Iām enjoying the view on the scenic route though
I hit level 13! Took 15 days, which is pretty typical for me.
Iām also nearly done with lesson 7 in Minna no Nihongo, though I have a couple days of workbook exercises ahead of me still. I looked ahead to the lesson 8 vocab in order to print off some more kanji practice sheets for it, and lesson 8 is very heavy on the kanji (in contrast to 7), but itās almost all kanji that I have already learned on WK, so it shouldnāt be a problem at all!
I burned out when almost year ago I got to level 6, but I still had initiated vocabulary from all the earlier levels. Now I really want to pass the rest of the level 5 vocabulary before moving on to the lessons for level 6, but I started to wonder if Iām the only completionist or are there others.
By the way, I really like this Flaming Durtles app view of radicals, kanjis and vocabulary. Itās been satistying to see the other levels disappear from the list. Any other users?
I used to complete all of the vocab from the previous level before starting on the new vocab, but I got demoralized from having to spend usually a full week just doing vocab before Iād hit the next levelās radicals. Now what I do is use the lesson filter script to distribute the kanji throughout the level (doing like 3 kanji and 10 vocab lessons a day, or 4 kanji and 9 vocab, etc.), and Iām much happier. Itās a lot easier for me to actually learn the kanji if Iām not learning them in huge batches, and itās really nice to get the associated vocab lessons done fairly soon after I learn the kanji (If I do the kanji in huge batches, it takes me ages to get to the vocab for the last kanji I guru).
Ironically, using a script actually cut down my lesson pile by a lot haha and now I donāt have as much of a backlog of lessons as I used to when I was just doing them in the vanilla WK order.
Would strongly recommend doing vocab after kanji before moving to new levelās items. The vocab, at least to me, is very useful when it comes to remembering kanji readings in word context.
If you take long breaks between reviews and some items already got burned, make sure you have some additional context to practice the items youāve learned or un-burn them . Otherwise, they might fade from memory.
My general approach is to go through items at least 3 times when learning them, especially kanji. That way Iām sure I will remember the items. The single round WaniKani provides when learning items is just not effective enough for me.
I havenāt read the full thread, but I thought Iād chime in and mention that Iām taking a more ādurtleā (I donāt even know what that word actually means, I just assumed it was some cute mnemonic or something) approach to WK after resetting from level 28 down to level 7 (after taking quite a long break during Covid-era).
I kinda wanted to reach a āhighā level when I first joined, and I feel that 28 is plenty āhighā enough for me to say to myself, āYay! I did it!ā. But when I took that break and faced over 9000! 2000 reviews and couldnāt get even like 10% of them right, and even forgot many/most of my āburnedā items, I finally decided to go with a reset, which was 100% the right decision for me.
After having āachievedā the āfast, high levelā goal, Iām now looking to focus more on my real goal, which has always really been āto learn Japanese!ā, no matter how slow-and-steady-wins-the-race I have to go. My goal now is not to get overwhelmed by giant review stacks, not to āburnā items I havenāt really āburnedā, to enjoy the process of learning like I did at the beginning with WK, etc.
My feedback / my personal perspective/goals. (NB: These are just my personal rephrasings. Iām not necessarily arguing that they should be actually rephrased in the initial post (unless they make sense for the group as a whole as well as just myself)):
For myself, I wouldnāt say āGo slowā just for the sake of going slow. If I were to rephrase that, I might re-emphasize it as āThereās no need to rush or to feel rushed! Go as slow as you need to; itās not a race or competition.ā
Iām not necessarily going for [0/0], as because of my reset, I have a bit of a āclumpyā review queue for a while, until I build up enough randomly interspersed reviews that the queue starts to smooth out. Some days are forecasted as having 90+ reviews, some fewer than 20. Therefore, Iām āsaving upā several lessons for those days when I have fewer reviews upcoming. The purpose here is to make steady, gradual, regular progress, ideally āevery dayā, though Iām going to give myself enough slack that I could take off say a week and not feel stressed/overwhelmed getting back into it.
Therefore, I might rephrase it as āAim for 0 reviews remaining at least once each day (to build the habit) and not to re-order lessons to level-up faster; just take the lessons as they come, and at a pace that you can maintain indefinitely,ā or something along those lines.
BTW, in further support of this (not necessarily aiming for [0/0], but more like [X,0] on a regular basis, and X decreasing close to 0 before leveling up):
The rate at which you get new lessons depends on the rate at which you Guru review items
[and rate of ānew lessonsā also depends on the rate at which you level up, which itself depends on the rate at which you Guru review items anyway. So, rate of Guruing is the main rate to try to regulate.]
And the rate at which you Guru review items depends on the rate at which you are ālearningā or āaddingā new items from your Lesson queue into your Review queue. (Canāt Guru an item if itās not in the review queue!)
Therefore, to regulate your ānaturalā rate of Guruing review items, it is also important to regulate your rate of āLearning/Addingā items from Lessons queue to Review queue.
Therefore, aiming for [0,0] would mean aiming for 0 Lessons, but that would mean a faster rate of āLearning Lessonsā, which would indirectly (but very significantly) affect your ultimate ānaturalā rate of Guruing items.
In other words, aiming for [0,0] too early in a level is actually not a great way to take the scenic route, IMHO. Rather, learn new lessons at a steady rate, modulated by how ālumpyā your upcoming review schedule is looking. Learn new lessons on slow days, donāt learn new lessons on heavy days. Itās okay to keep a queue of lessons, as long as youāre not āabusingā this queue to try to level up faster (e.g. by re-ordering or ignoring vocabs in favour of learning radicals and kanjis faster which will lead to leveling up too fast and giving you a huge backlog of vocab items!).
āAvoid burn outsā YES! Absolutely my main reason for resetting and taking it slower this time around.
āAvoid needing to resetā Well, on the other hand, āDefinitely reset if you need to, and if itās the right option for you, though!ā Depending on the situation, resetting can relieve a great amount of burden or overwhelm, and give you the breathing room you need to actually start learning again. Perhaps, āThereās no shame in resetting if you need to, but ideally weād rather not get into that situation in the first place,ā or something like that.
Lastly:
āThe journey is more important than the end goalā: Well, I wonder about this. For me, the end goal (learning Japanese! Not āgetting to level 60ā!) is the ultimate motivation for the journey in the first place. Without that goal, I wouldnāt be on WK. On the other hand, I agree that the journey itself must (for me, at least) be enjoyable, to keep my motivation up, and so I agree that the journey itself is very very important. But more important than the end goal (learning Japanese)? No, I donāt think I could actually go that far. Maybe Iād rephrase this something like, āThe journey towards the final destination (learning Japanese) is more important than the artificial sub-goals (leveling up; reaching level 60) that are merely milestones along the way.ā
All of the above is just my own opinion/POV, not meant to be confrontational to the OP or anyone else. Apologies ahead of time if anything I wrote came across that way. It grew into a much bigger post than I originally intended and Iām going to have to just post it as-is without polishing it up. To paraphrase Blaise Pascal, I havenāt the time to write it better/shorter!
Cheers, everyone! Hope youāre all doing well and not feeling stressed, overwhelmed, burnt-out, or on the verge thereof. Happy Durtling!
I think we just put different meaning in the words =)
Iāve tried to put it in short and fun way without putting to many words, and each point can be interpreted how the user wants (or ignored if that point is not important to them)
The 0/0 is mainly to avoid leaving reviews for too long (try get zero reviews often) and donāt leave old vocabs (many donāt get a true zero zero, but donāt leave the vocabs from previous level and make sure to get them done before they level again and count that as accomplishing zero zero. )
I manage to get a true zero zero every level with ease, by doing vocabs first, then kanji, zero when I do radicals. So it doesnāt push the speed to faster at all. I sometimes even wait til the first set of kanji have gurured and do their vocabs before I do the radicals.
Iām also all for resetting where needed. The point of that line is to do the right steps to avoid needing it. There are many who start here after a reset.
Also the point of enjoying the journey is to find enjoyment in each kanji/word you learn rather than strive for levels. It is the learning that is the point
(I regularly watch DDT, TJPW, NJPW, and AEW, as well as a fair amount of NOAH and occasional ChocoPro, and Iām in the process of catching up on Stardom). Suzuki-gun is a good choice of favorites! I really like Douki, but I think my favorite person in the faction is El Desperado. Definitely agreed on wrestling getting me through the pandemic, though.
Iām a little slower than you at around 18 days the last two levels. I hit the 0/0 several times this level, which means Iām keeping up quite well.
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Absolutely my main reason for resetting and taking it slower this time around.