Welp, I’ve been dreading this for a while. I just reset my account back to level 1. I was only on level 8, so I wasn’t too far.
I signed up for lifetime November 2024 and was going strong for a while. Then when I hit level 8, I dropped out for a bit. Reviews started piling up, and I lost motivation for about 2 months. Then I finally got caught up on all reviews, just to let them immediately pile up again.
I really really want to learn Japanese, so I really want to study. So, I reset my account to level 6. I went strong for a few weeks back up to Level 8, then the same thing happened again. This time, I’ve been away for about 6 months. Over the last week, I’ve tried to get caught up on reviews, but I just can’t remember things.
I reset again to level 6, and I still can’t remember more than half. So I pulled the trigger, back to level 1, and now I’m starting fresh.
Please, any tips to not get burnt out this time around? I usually never go above 15 lessons per day anyway. Sometimes every other day, depending on how much time I have.
Find something besides SRS to engage with. Just hearing a random word here or there and thinking “I just learned that” or reading something and going “I know this Kanji” can work wonders for my motivation.
I meant more something you enjoy. Maybe look at some manga pages and try to decipher a few words or even a whole sentence. Watch an anime and try to listen and see if you catch some words you know. Maybe put on some Japanese music, see if you find something you like and if you can identify a few words.
Or follow some game creators on some social platform and see if you can identify words in their posts.
Stuff that gets you excited is the best motivation to keep going. It’s not about learning that stuff, it’s about finding your motivation.
We had people learn Japanese because of Visual Novels, because of Anime, because they like Japanese Wrestling, etc., etc. Find what motivates you. Just thinking “it would be nice to know this language” will never bring you to actually learn a Language. Especially one that requires such a huge commitment before you start to reap the big benefits.
Need to build discipline. I wonder if you are try to do too much before your habit has formed, I think you need about 7 days for your habit to form so maybe try doing just a few lessons. The rush of completing your lessons and your reviews of such a small pile will help push you forward. Personally, I have almost an obsession around completing my kanji reviews and even schedule my life around them. I know when my Kanji are due for reviews and I make sure I’m here for them. You don’t have to do this, just do your kanjis each day building that habit and just trust in yourself. Also, don’t be hard on yourself if you miss a day.
Self Study quiz
this tool will help you practice your cards and help the concepts stick because you’ll be reviewing them more regularly and since this system builds up to more complex kanji it’ll help you become solid in your current kanji.
Graded readers
These will help you see them in context, maybe you are the person who needs them to be seen in the wild for them to stick as a concept.
Vocab from TV shows I enjoy watching tend to stick better. Watch something fun. English subs is fine.
Once you get to WK level 5 maybe take the number of lessons down to 12 or 9. Commit to doing at least 20min every day, reviews first and lessons only if you did well on your reviews.
I understand. I do work in Manufacturing for a Japanese-based company, so a whole lot of our equipment has labels printed in English and Japanese. Lots of coding I deal with has Japanese notes and stuff. So, I do see Japanese on a daily basis, and that company is my main reason for wanting to learn the language. And yes, it’s very encouraging that I can read most of the hiragana/katakana scattered around, and make out a lot of the words that are basically English words spelled out with katakana. I’ve made out a few Kanji here and there, and that is very fun.
I’ve reset a couple times. First reset was after being stuck for over a year, and of course life getting in the way. Second time, I was stuck for a while again. I thought of resetting again but decided to stick with it. I was away for a bit of time and trying to get back at it. Working on the backlog of reviews and figure the stuff I don’t remember could use some extra study time anyway.
It takes time to learn another language. Enjoy it.
I generally (and frequently, perhaps annoyingly so!) recommend taking time to really understand why you want to learn the language and what your final goal is, and then working backward from your goal to come up with the things you feel like can help you get there. If you’re looking at WaniKani or Genki or anything else as “study tools”, it kind of feels like an “obligation” and not something you’re really personally invested in and it can be harder to keep up the habit, but more importantly harder to resume once you’ve had a pause. If instead you look at them as your way of making progress towards the personal goal that is truly important to you, that makes it easier to stay active and to overcome any bumps in the road along the way.
have you considered that wanikani is just not the right tool for you right now? maybe learning kanji isnt the right thing for you start with and you would profit more by using something different in the beginning. the good news is, since you bought lifetime, there is no pressure to use wanikani right now.
personally, i only started kanji and wanikani in my third year of japanese. it didnt impact my manga binge reading habit at all, i just had to make sure everything i read got furigana i tried wanikani in the very beginning, too. but thought for my goals (reading tons of manga), a good base of vocab and grammar would bring me faster and more enjoyable to my goal instead of learning kanji without context and much else. now that i have a good vocab base, learning kanji, even those different readings, is quite easy. i usually know a few vocab already for every kanji i learned so far, i just didnt know they were using those kanji
i’d suggest trying a few different ressources for a while and see what you actually enjoy and what feels better aligned with your goals. something that feels like actual progress towards your goals instead of just the level number going up. and come back later to wanikani, when you actually feel like your lack of kanji is holding you back.
The easiest thing to do different would be to start with a cap of something like 5 lessons per day. Maybe if it’s too easy at the beginning do levels 1-3 at 15 lessons per day, levels 4-6 at 10 lessons per day, and then from level 7, go at 5 lessons per day and spend your other time on grammar and finding something fun to do with Japanese. That way if life happens, reviews don’t pile up so fast. Commit to some low number of minimum reviews per day, so that even if reviews are piling up, you still do your minimum of 20 or 50, for example. Then you keep the habit, and when irl events calm down, you ramp up again.
Doing something or just going slower is better than 2-6 months passing and resetting. And if at some point in your grammar and reading you really feel a strong need for more kanji learning, maybe that would be a reason to speed up. But perhaps wait until you’ve broken through at least level 10 this time.
Also, it goes without saying, when you don’t clear all reviews, don’t do lessons (you didn’t say if you did that, so sorry if that isn’t relevant)
There’s something to unpack here - what happens when you dropped it? Did life happen, or were reviews coming around for the 4 month burn review and the load suddenly increased and you got demotivated and quit?
Doing a bit of soul searching detective work as to exactly why you dropped it and didn’t come back could help with figuring out the solution.
I think each person is different. But, from the beginning I knew I was in danger of getting buried. I am currently too busy to do much more than just maintain at level 8. So, I reduced my lessons from 5 a day to 1. The reviews keep me from losing what I’ve learned. I am learning a lot of kanji outside wanikani at the moment. It’s a big help in learning a kanji if I have already encountered the kanji on wanikani. It also works the other way, if I’ve studied a kanji outside wanikani, reviewing and solidifying it on wanikani gives me a much better chance of retaining it. Good luck.
So we know you don’t get to sleep any more, so there’s no excuse!
No matter how big your goals may be for learning Japanese, you’ve got something way more important going on with life. Give yourself the space and grace to accept if you’re not able to power through WK because life has more pressing time demands at the moment. If you have time for learning and it fits within your new life schedule, great! We’ll be here for any advice we can offer, and if you don’t have time that’s okay - just don’t feel like you’ve got to either go full speed or stop; slowing down is always an option too.
Don’t reset, just select vacation mode on the account settings.
I took a one month break for the entirely of December and had over 200 mistakes after reviewing everything, 270+ mistakes 30+ hours after undoing vacation mode. I did all the reviews then reviewed all 200+ and 270+ mistakes twice
I’ve been using WaniKani for about four years now, and I’ve reset it several times. Once I reached Level 12, I reset back to 1, and then again when I got to 16 and 23. Since then, I’ve found most of the earlier lessons stay in brain, but the ones after 20 still need a bit of work, so I’ve reset back to 20 a couple of times. I’m now up to 27, and I think I’m going to go back to the early 20s soon. I figure it’s better to feel good about the stuff you’re doing than get overwhelmed. I don’t really have a reason to master this quickly, so I might as well do it properly. My tip is don’t feel like you’re in a race to the end. The current version of the app allows me to ignore the new vocab and prioritise the radicals and kanji, so I only add new vocab on the days when I have to wait a couple of days for the final reviews of radicals or kanji. (My vocab is currently set way back compared to where I’ve been in the past.)
When you feel overwhelmed, just put vacation mode on for a week or so and then come back, and ignore the length of time it takes you to level up.
Also, I do remember the early days feeling ridiculously hard and getting annoyed at myself for not remembering the basics. But over time, your brain will adapt, and you’ll start to retain more.
I like having something fun to try to make use of what I’m learning. Here are some things I do, no stress, if I don’t get to them it’s all good. But I’m actually pretty regular:
Cozy Japanese Minecraft Life. These two Japanese guys play Minecraft and speak. At my level, I’m lucky if I recognize a word or two, but it’s really motivating when I do. And it’s just relaxing to listen to.
I language exchange with my Japanese daughter-in-law. She’s really the reason I’m learning Japanese anyway. Her English is pretty good. So I’ll read a children’s book aloud in Japanese and she helps me with my pronunciation.
I’ve heard somewhere it’s about 100 days of doing something every day until it becomes a habit and thus easier to actually do.
As for OP, I have seen a lot of great tips here but I would like to add consistency. Try to do a little every day, even if it’s just half of your reviews. This has helped me a lot in progressing. Some levels also felt harder for some reason, lvl 8/9 were really slow ones for me personally.
Remember, every time you come back to Japanese you will build on what you knew before, even if it seems you forgot it. Try something slightly different each time, there are loads of great suggestions in this thread. Just choose one and you’ll learn something new about yourself
Also, don’t forget, just in case this happens again, you don’t have to reset all the way to 1, you can choose a level. So perhaps in future vacation mode plus a reset of 2-3 levels will be enough.
i tried wanikani in the very beginning, too. but thought for my goals (reading tons of manga), a good base of vocab and grammar would bring me faster and more enjoyable to my goal instead of learning kanji without context and much else. now that i have a good vocab base, learning kanji, even those different readings, is quite easy. i usually know a few vocab already for every kanji i learned so far, i just didnt know they were using those kanji