Level 4 advice

That is fantastic! I’m glad to hear you have a plan and are moving forward. :smile:

Is Level 4 much harder than Level 3? I’m thinking a lot about subscribing after finishing the free levels.

My personal favorites are 識(しき), 織(しき) and 職(しょく). I also think that there later levels are a little harder but still doable.

If you’ve enjoyed you’re time up to the end of level 3, I would say go for it. They’ve done a pretty decent job balancing out the levels seeing as if it got exponentially harder each level, people probably wouldn’t survive to 60.

I heard the earlier levels are easier though to compensate for learning the system though.

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Thanks for answering! I’m just not sure whether I can keep up with the workload, as I’m also studying grammar and building up my vocabulary, and fitting Japanese study in with my schedule. I just wonder if I should instead focus on grammar as well as listening and answering quicker, then build on kanji later.

You can always just take the levels slower. I think it’s better to be consistent than doing it in bursts. In my case I do 10 kanji and 10 vocab, or 20 vocab when there’s no more kanji. This makes the workload the same and something you can keep up with every day.

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image

Ah yes the workload.

In all seriousness like Rever said, you can go at any pace you want, you don’t have to do a level every 7 days, some do 1 a month.

(Also the workload picture represents how many items are in your queue each day, not how many will pass through the queue and into your review section so don’t worry, also the pic is from My Journey of 368 days (+ The Ultimate Guide for WK 📖 ) - #2 by jprspereira)

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Wow, I was literally just reading that :joy:what a coincidence!
I’m actually amazed at how people customise their WaniKani schedule…all that calculating :sweat_smile:
Well, I’ll definitely think hard about subscribing. I do enjoy WaniKani a lot. Although I’m definitely not going to finish in 368 days, so if I do, I’ll have to go for the lifetime subscription.

As far as I know, every past winter there has been a sale on lifetime (however it is not officially guaranteed annually) which is what I’m personally hoping for. (If you get a 1 year and upgrade they subtract the difference which is what I want but it’s also a slight gamble)

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I’m reading the guides…too…much…info…:exploding_head:Well, thank you so much for being so helpful! Rever too!

I got lifetime during the most recent sale, it coincided perfectly with me starting wanikani so I thought the stars aligned and I had to get lifetime while it was 200 USD. I set a new year’s goal that I wanted to make it to level 30 by the end of the year, which I have already achieved and really thank wanikani for making the kanji learning experience so easy. I was really dreading going the textbook route just to be able to read the alphabet of the language.

@e_w0205 Yeah that ultimate wk guide by jprspereira was the most helpful resource when I was starting out, I cannot stress that enough. I honestly don’t know why it isn’t pinned at the top of the forums yet. It would halve the number of questions that get asked here.

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You can start quite simple, actually:

The first concept to consider is the number of items currently at Apprentice level. This is seen by many as an abstract number of your current workload, because A) these items are still fresh and B) it indirectly determines how many Guru/Master/Englightened reviews you will have later on.
The second concept to consider is the number 4. Every item you finish a lesson for will appear four times in Apprentice reviews (assuming an accuracy of 100%).
The third, and last, concept to consider is your actual accuracy. This one is hard to get an actual number on, so you have to eyeball it and adjust as you go.

To put these together:

  1. Pick a target Apprentice count (i.e. target workload). I usually see 100 - 120 on the forums, I use 100 personally. This is your “budget”.
  2. Determine how much of your budget you want to reserve for failed items. In my case, it’s 20%.
  3. Divide the remainder of the budget by 4. This is the amount of lessons you can do per day to stay within your budget. In my case, that’s 80 / 4 = 20 items.
  4. If your Apprentice count at a given day doesn’t allow for a full set of lessons, you only do as much as your budget allows.

And that’s all you need for a basic lessons schedule:

  • 20 lessons per day, which amounts to 80 Apprentice items at any given time
  • 20 “reserve items” for anything that failed a review

You’ll also need a review schedule:

(The first 2-3 levels are an exception to this, as they have faster SRS intervals than the rest of WaniKani)

  1. Pick a time of the day X (e.g. 9am). That’s where you do your lessons. Some items that fell back to Apprentice 2 or lower during review will also end up here.
  2. The first review will appear at X + 4 (1pm). This one is really short, as it only includes the items from the lesson earlier.
  3. The second review will appear at X + 12 (9pm). This is the time slot where the bulk of your items will stay.
  4. Reviews that appear in between these slots are ignored until the next planned time slot. Otherwise you’ll end up with a schedule where you have to do reviews for 5-6 items every other hour, interrupting pretty much everything else in your life. (There are people that do this and I did this when I started WaniKani, because I had the time for it, but I don’t recommend it as a regular schedule)

You only need to determine X so that these three events fit into your daily schedule. Another popular one is something like [5pm, 9pm, 7-9am]. Usually it’s fine to stretch the second interval (X + 12) a bit, but you’ll need to experiment, if it works for you.

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Thank you so much for the reply! That makes a lot more sense now!

Ahhhh I decided to subscibe!! Annual first, then if there’s a sale I can upgrade to lifetime. Unfortunately it’s more expensive for me as I live in Australia, but I’m sure it’s worth it! So excited for the journey ahead! :relaxed: Also: Good luck InnocenceExo…I’ll be there with you now :slightly_smiling_face:

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Annual first, then if there’s a sale I can upgrade to lifetime.

Rumor is that the sale on Annual starts 15 or 18 December. Apparently it is roughly the same time every year.

You will be prorated for unused months of a yearly subscription as I understand it so you would get the sale price and whatever amount is remaining from your yearly sub goes to the price.

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Well it’s just as expensive as anywhere, you can’t expect 1aud to be the same as 1usd.

True. I…meant slightly differently, but sorry, that was a weird statement :joy:

I feel you, I’m stuck with Canadian rupees.

Edit:

Assuming you are American (pardon me if I am incorrect), the mentality is simply that both the AUD and the CAD used to be equivalent to the USD not that many years ago. We aren’t saying we don’t expect money to fluctuate because it does, it’s just a mentality.

Are they not canadian dollars?

Actually australian but idm, it’s beside the point. I understand that mentality but it’s wishful thinking at best. I remember when 100 yen equalled 1 aud but it’s not anymore, and I still keep that mentality when doing quick conversions but I also take away a little to account for the actual rate.

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