Hello all, first post here but not a very positive one.
some background, I started wanikani around a year ago and things where going swimmingly at first, however I didn’t really take it (and all my jp learning)seriously, cheating here and there nothing too major. A few months later I wasn’t really using japanese outside of wk and didn’t do any grammar or reading due to personal life getting busy, I kept telling myself I’d start other studies but I kept procrastinating and never really did, regardless I continued trudging through wk and at the time I was hating it so I cheated A LOT.
This is where the problem lies, I’m in a much better place now and am ready to take Japanese more seriously, however I’ve frequently found myself seeing kanji and being like ‘I’ve learned this and I know the reading but have no idea what it means’ and vice versa or confusing kanji with similar ones due to lack of usage during early learning and the cheating is catching up with me as my burn failure is through the roof.
Furthermore going thru burned items I find myself having to unburn a staggering amount, I’m enjoying wanikani again but the huge amounts of unburning and burn failure is somewhat disheartening and at this point I’m thinking of cutting my losses and resetting to get the chance to actually use the stuff Im learning.
That is all, I just want some other peoples thoughts on my predicament, thanks.
Also sorry if this isn’t the correct category I’m not super well versed in this haha.
Resetting and going over the same levels again isn’t much in the long run. It’s much better to set yourself back a few weeks to strengthen those few hundred items than it is to spend the rest of your time on WK suffering.
I was also stuck on level 37 (although the situation was slightly different) and I ended up resetting to 15 and it helped immensely.
The SRS is no longer doing its job, so I think it would be better to start anew. As for what level to reset to, try looking at vocabulary level by level and seeing where you start to get lost. Though I don’t know the SRS times, if you’re failing burns you might have to restart a bit far back, but like @Wantitled said it’ll be worth it.
Go back lesson by lesson until you start knowing most but not all of the kanji. Then reset to that. Nothing wrong with resetting if it helps your motivation.
Yeah, I figured that redoing previous levels wouldn’t be as difficult but I’m still somewhat hesitant to reset so much as it just feels like I’ve wasted all that time, even though it’ll probably help in the long run.
After browsing old levels it looks like I’d be resetting to around level 10 and just manually unburning the few forgotten things from previous levels, this is kind of daunting so I’m going to spend the night thinking about this and probably come to decision in the morning. Thanks for the help guys.
I’ve reset a couple of times, although not nearly as many levels (but my situation was different). What I found was that it was so much easier to deal with learning new things from lesson on. Anything that was somewhere in the review limbo is much harder to get to stick again.
Also, remember that you aren’t really losing time. You still need to learn those kanji and words, right? So you’ll need to do it somehow. Resetting is one way to do it.
I’ve also noticed it can be quite nice to have some easy lessons (aka those I still remembered or those I’d learnt through other means).
I don’t know if you do anything outside WK, if you aren’t, I’d suggest you also add some time for that. Some grammar learning and also some consuming of content (manga, novels, anime, VNs, games, whatever is your jam). By using what you are learning, it can ease the heaviness of studying. And it also helps cement what you are learning.
Welcome to the forums! I hope you enjoy your stay! I wish I could keep this post positive, but I’ll turn to your original topic.
I took too long to reset (and probably didn’t reset enough), being hesitant myself about it, convinced I could trudge through 2000 reviews unassisted by resetting, and it wound up preventing me from making any progress for far too long.
Please don’t make the same mistake and feel free to reset if you believe you’ll be better off that way. I’m much more comfortable resetting now, and did not hesitate to jump back from 48 to 46 just recently after having cheated to level up and starting to wind up in the script abusing camp with 300 lessons. It only took a week to recover and things are much better now!
May I suggest an alternative - try resetting to level 25, unburning all items and then try to for a week or so how things go. For forgotten items you can also use the extended study feature.
I totally relate to the review limbo, some things really wouldn’t stick again after failing a late review stage.
Also I figured that redoing levels wouldn’t be as difficult so it would give me more time to focus on things outside of wk which is what I’m trying to do atm.
After resetting, I soon came across a thread about regaining/retaining the joy of learning Japanese, by taking the time necessary, and not rushing things too much. I really like the ‘philosophy’ of it: Let’s Durtle the Scenic Route
Ah, yes, one thing I mentioned in the reset post I linked to was about how I went with the Lifetime Subscription, specifically for the purpose of reducing the feeling that I’ve ever ‘wasted’ time/money on: long breaks, having to reset any levels, or just taking my time durtling along the scenic route. For me, that was very important just for the sake of my mental health (relieves worrying). I don’t regret it and would recommend it to anyone who’s not trying for the speed-run-to-level-60 game.
I’ve reset two times and it wasn’t that bad. The beginning will be very tedious, but after a few levels you’ll get back to things you don’t remember very well.
I find level 37 challenging too, and also find I have forgotten burned kanji. For me, I don’t want to reset and rehash lessons. My at the moment remedy is to practice writing problem kanji. I find writing kanji really meditative, and I like working out how the parts all fit in with the story.
I find reading really helps me remember forgotten kanji.
Good luck with which ever way you decide to go!
go back like 10 levels max, the beginning will be very boring IMO
try immersion as well, I am not into reading these days, even manga in my own native language I dont like reading anymore
but anime with japanese subtitles is the way to go for me, 1 episode each day makes me complete when I understand most of the dialogues and the effort on WK was worth doing.
Well, after much thought I have decided to bite the bullet and reset back to level 11.
You guys have been great, cant thank you all enough.
Hopefully things go better this time.
Keep fighting the good fight folks.
Let’s Durtle the Scenic Route 