Yeah, listening is hard in general. The thing thatās helped me most is listening to things on repeat, until the words āclickā and make sense, but I need to do a lot more of it. There are so many words that sound like each other.
@quilltips, @DurtleHeaven, and @alygator:
I have not personally tried it yet, and I also havenāt tried to study for anything JLPT related, but there is a relatively new ācramā feature at BunPro which, among other things, includes a kind of ālisteningā study.
Again, I havenāt personally tried it, so I donāt really know how it works, but as far as I understand it, it involves listening to natively-spoken audio of example sentences. Beyond that, I really havenāt paid attention to how it works. I just remember several people posting replies to the new announcement saying that this was a new feature that really filled in a gap they had in verbal recognition/comprehension.
Might be worth checking out, if it interests you. 
In general, BunPro has really revamped their Cram feature and people in the replies seem to really appreciate the changes. Again, I havenāt personally been using Cram, either before or after the changes, so I canāt personally vouch for it, tho. Oh yeah, BTW, itās actually a beta feature, not yet fully released, but you can opt-in to it if you have a subscribed account. Info: Cram 2.0 [Beta] - Bunpro - Bunpro Community
Ooh, thank you! Yet another reason I need to finally sign up for Bunpro. Iāve heard great things about them.
Took me 7 days, but I have finally reached 0 reviews pending!! That 500+, sometimes 600+, review mountain was hard to climb. Now when I see 100 pending review for tomorrow, it no longer scares me haha!! Still plodding my way through level 14 though. But itās all good. 
Thanks! It actually went a lot better than expected, but definitely encountered some unknown vocab in the reading. It through me off a lot, but I think I managed to figure out what the correct answer was to that question lol.
I took the N4 and it was the first time that Iāve done the JLPT. I skipped the N5 because I felt like I knew enough grammar to be able to tackle the N4. Plus I couldnāt bear the thought of the test mainly being in hiragana only 
. Reading hiragana is sometimes more exhausting than kanji, lol.
But my road to the N4 was mainly brushing up on the grammar points I had learnt before but had forgotten (last Japanese class was 3 years agoā¦) and also learning new grammar that I have never heard of. I feel like the move from N4 to N3 is going to be a little harder for me to tackle. But thatās next yearās problem haha
Iāve been using Bunpro to review lessons I already learned through my online classes but never tried the cram feature before! Will have to figure out how to use it and give it a try!
Completely agree with you on this. Wait, so i think I read somewhere in the (very loooong) JLPT threads that both N5 and N4 were heavy on hiragana and you have to get used to seeing the kanji you know in their furigana/hiragana form. I may have misread that though. Is it not the case for N4 then?
Thanks for the tips! If you plan on trying Bunpro, they have a feature to turn off English and Japanese on the example sentences so you can listen first, then show the Japanese, read and then finally show the translation. Pretty useful! Although i should really be making use of it more. I tend to skip through those example sentences a lot. 
You did it! Yay!! 
Been there; I agree! And even so, you did it! Awesome! 
It may seem to some people like such a small thing, to not feel a sensation of fear or anxiety when facing a kind of self-imposed workload like that. But in reality, even āsmallā feelings of fear/anxiety can and will build up and wear a person down, if they are not dealt with constructively (the best way being to face them and tackle them bit by bit, just as you have done ā did I mention, āYay!ā yet? ).
Congratulations and may your journey continue to be pleasant and enjoyable!
Step by step is the Durtle Way. Gives you a chance to āstop and smell the roses sakuraā ā to pause and appreciate your progress.
ā¦ 
ā¦ [
āLvl 15ā] ā¦ 
ā¦ 
[ 
- sniff sniff - 
] ā¦ ā¦ [ āLvl 14ā] ā¦ 
Thanks for the tip!
I do use BunPro, and love it. Iām still on N5.
I have had enough normal reviews to not try the cram feature yet, so didnāt know this 
The N5 expects you to know ~100 kanji, and N4 expects ~300. (Numbers vary depending on the list, since they donāt publish an official one.) So itās still hiragana heavy for sure, but itās not as bad as the N5.
That sounds perfect!
Thank you so much for your kind words!! 
Itās amazing the anxiety I had started to put on myself whilst doing the reviews. Clearing that pile and taking a little break over the weekend from WaniKani has helped to reshape how I approach it! in the beginning I felt like I had to try and strive for those streaks and never take a break from WaniKani. But I realised that rushing doesnāt always mean retaining the information.
Taking this as a slow and steady wins the race attitude and I am at peace with that now!
Also just came on to say that I actually burned my first 2 items just now!! I wanted to cry haha I didnāt think I would see the day and also almost marks 6 months of me doing WaniKani!
Here is to however long it takes me to get through WK and I will enjoy smelling all the sakura whilst at it!! 
When it comes to breaks, I try to do a low enough amount of lessons to not need one, but when I find I am too busy it is better to just stop lessons, but keep doing reviews. Keep the learned items relevant and do the srs as intended.
Learning new items can wait
I stopped doing lessons this month, and will continue again in January. Decided to just take the month off.
I might be tempted to do a few lessons if I have a day with zero reviews, just to keep my streak. But so far there are some daily, since Iāve been so steady in lessons, so get my masters and enlightened in at the very least.
I finally understood the benefit of stopping lessons, and just focusing on trying to do the reviews. At first I felt bad for not doing any more lessons, but it worked out in the end since I feel like my reviews are now somewhat under control. Now I just need to not get back into the habit of overdoing it on the lessons, now that I have cleared my reviews and burned even more items!
Oooh! Can I join? Felt as though my pace is glacial sometimes, though I tend to spend over an hour doing WaniKani every day. My slow pace is mainly due to always clearing all my reviews, and level ups donāt care about reviews.
I took 693 days for me to complete level 1 if that increases my credibility*.
*I started level 1, forgot about it, then went off to study Japanese by other means, but Iām still gonna say it counts as a 693 day level up
A very strong level 1 haha. Welcome aboard!
Hereās a glacier in Japan. It might be the Gozenzawa Glacier
I hadnāt even noticed I levelled up to 16 (again) until I went to check my email 
Iāve slowed down a lot due to school. It takes a lot of energy out of me and I tend to go through pretty extreme waves of low motivation/high motivation. Winter break is coming up in a few days though, so I think Iāll try to get to 17 by the end of it.
Thank you very much, now I know how to call my pace. Half a year per lvl or smth.
Welcome! On the bright side, youāve got a nice strong burn pile. That should make for smoother sailing during the next several levels.
Level 51! I have entered reality!
I spent about two weeks on level 50. Upping my daily lesson count a little went fine, for the most part, though KaniWani got a huge batch of new lesson items added all at once, and that combined with increased lessons on WK ended up being rougher than I expected. Iāve gone back to 10 total daily lessons on WK (3 kanji, 7 vocab), after I managed to get the backlog down to reasonable levels.
My biggest update is that I finished writing a short guide for learning Japanese with a pro wrestling focus! The guide has taken off a lot more than I expected. I shared it on twitter and then on reddit (pro wrestling reddit and not a language learning subreddit), and quite a few people have thanked me for writing it!
Though, I doubt there are many new resources in there for folks on this forum, especially people whoāve been following my study log, haha. I mentioned WaniKani, but didnāt go into too much detail because I wanted to keep it short.
Going to reach level 9 tonight! I thought my average speed was a lot slower, but 13 days average ā¦ I guess Iām not quite in the durtle club just yet.
Everyone is welcome in the ādurtle clubā no matter the actual speed. Itās the āfeelingā of it that counts. If you value ātaking your timeā, whatever āyour timeā might be, then it doesnāt matter how you compare to other folks.
In the past, I tried to do the āquick as possible to level 60ā thing, and I think I managed around 10-ish days per level. I forget now, because I reset to level 7 a while back and didnāt keep my old stats. My point is simply that I could go fast if I āwantedā to (but I no longer āwantā to! ).
These days, my median level time is about 23 days ā which, honestly, I sometimes think, āSheesh, thatās pretty slow.ā But then I remember that it doesnāt really matter how slow or fast I go, it only matters if Iām going at a sustainable pace where I can enjoy doing my WaniKani reviews and other Japanese learning activities ā as opposed to feeling pressured or stressed or (worst of all) overwhelmed by them.
I honestly could force myself to probably go at a āmore acceptableā (by whose standards?! ) pace of say 2 weeks per level, but I already know that even that would be too forced for me. I would lose my sense of calmness as I do my reviews. Itās not worth it for me.
But, for someone else, maybe 2 weeks per level is their comfort zone! Heck, maybe even my old speed of 10-ish days per level. Just because Iām going along at 23-ish days per level doesnāt have anything to do with someone elseās preferred speed. Itās all about just being able to durtle along the scenic route, enjoying the journey, at whatever pace is good for you!
So, once again, welcome to the ādurtle clubā! 