I finally achieved the level 20 after one year of Wanikani. It is really satisfying to learn this huge amount of information in a space of time I consider really short.
By the way, three things are concerning me, and I guess other fellow students are in the same situation.
First, I noticed I have dificulty to remember few burned items. For example, Vocabulary that uses already burned Kanjis.
I think it’s natural, due to the fact that I still have no routine of reading anything in japanese in a regular basis.
Even considering this, real life is a little bit different… The end of year is full of commitments, and in my case thanks to my work, Wanikani has been put in the second plan for a while.
Last but not the least, the icing on the cake is the Wanikani recent changes.
Any kind of advises, tips, discussions are more than welcome!
Yes, I noticed that there are some things that I’m starting to forget, especially if it has been burnt a long time ago. I decided not to worry and continue to work through the levels, or else I’ll spend all my time refreshing stuff (and then refreshing the refreshed stuff when I start to forget that), and never reach the end of WK. After I’m done with all 60 levels, I’ll probably either restart or unburn selected parts, but not earlier.
If I notice that I need to work on one particular kanji because it comes up over and over again, or the differences between to similar kanji because I constantly confuse them, then I’ll do that, but not more.
I think you can easily get stuck in intermediate levels if you try to keep everything you learnt fresh. One forgets things, that’s just life…
They are burned, so that’s it, the SRS its done, move on (don’t get stuck on more SRS, it won’t make a difference). Continue with what’s next, start reading for example.
Whatever way you’re planning to use japanese start now… you’ll look up known words when reading too (until you are really familiar with those… and those are really burnt ), when talking you’ll have second thoughts, writing too… so, yeah it’s normal, don’t let the “burn” thing make you feel like there’s something you’re not doing right… it’s just that you are supose to start making use of words eventually.
I’m the same level and recently went back and put all my burned cards into Anki (I also quit for way too long, so there’s a huge gap with basically no Japanese exposure).
My numbers for the Kanji from levels 1-10 were about 80% recall, with probably 15% being pretty much perfectly recalled after only 1 or 2 mistakes (so within a few days), and the last 5% being Kanji I had totally forgotten about.
Not bad in my opinion, for a lot of these cards being over a year since I last saw them, with extremely little Japanese exposure in that year as well.
The tool I used is https://wanikanitoanki.com/ . It’s also pretty useful for reinforcing anything your struggling with (set the critical percentage to 80% or higher).
One of the things i do if i am concerned about forgetting a reading or kanji/vocab item or both is writing some sentences using Simeji-keyboard on my android device.
Simeji is a keyboard app that allows one to write in both Japanese and English (should be available for iOS too).
After writing in kana the app allows you to select if you want kanji or kana or partially kanji and kana.
Typing is pretty much the same as doing reviews here.
i also add those items to ankidroid for further drilling.
The both ways are great for kun’yomi single kanji vocabs etc.
Writing a diary/journal daily is imho one of the best ways to get experienced in Japanese and with Simeji one doesn’t even have to remember any stroke order or such.
Doesn’t have to be fancy but even simple sentences go a long way if done repeatedly.
This page explains very well how to write sentences in Japanese:
), when talking you’ll have second thoughts, writing too… so, yeah it’s normal, don’t let the “burn” thing make you feel like there’s something you’re not doing right… it’s just that you are supose to start making use of words eventually.