(This thread was archived but I need to celebrate so: “RISE!”)
After under a year and half, I found myself threading water at 1000+ reviews (from a relatively steady 9 days/level to a building tiredness/annoyance.) Just at the edge of paradise, I was about to re-set, but then decided against it and bore down on reviews and older vocab lessons. I resisted the urge to level up quickly and instead held myself at level 40 for a long (for me) 86 days. I am now back to finding the process fun, feel rested and ready to keep up the rest of the way to the land of gold. Is this really paradise? Not sure, but it feels my sails have filled with a gentle breeze, the sun is shining and there’s a song in my heart. When a language such as Japanese suddenly changes from obtuse scribbles to cogent ideas, that is the paradise I yearn for. Storms of hell behind me, I’ll be sailing on peacefully.
For those <= 9 days, please check all that applies:
☐ You do lessons as soon as they are unlocked.
☐ You do all lessons at once.
☐ You do all reviews within 10 minutes of them becoming available.
☐ You never get kanji or radicals wrong.
☐ You are a wizard.
Ultimate timeline installed and 9 days/level is not THAT fast. The way to level-up quickly often involves skipping vocab though and that’s a mountain that doesn’t stop rising…
You don’t really need to do 1000+ reviews at once. You don’t really have to reach 0/0. You might use
Wrap-Up button enhancement / a stopwatch / a clock
Reorder Ultimate / SRS reorder
Just remember to keep Apprentice low (<150), and probably Guru too (<500).
Split up both lessons and reviews over a few days. I don’t want to see people burnout from overworking themselves.
In Lv 46-60, 3 days per level is too fast. (But 9 days per level is not.)
7 days (not 9 days), is indeed doing all Kanji and radicals as soon as they come up (but not vocabularies - which is allowed to be spread over a few days).
Thank you all for participacting. Here’s my statistics:
70% of respondents are wizards.
35% of respondents couldn’t check the boxes.
35% of respondents disagree with the main point of the post.
@polv My whole life was a lie. This makes a lot of sense now actually, for a lot of things. It’s because there are no radicals to slow us down, right? So only kanji needs to be guru’ed (circa 3 days)! This also explains the “2000 Kanji and 6000 Vocabulary in just over a year.”
For me leveling up quickly has nothing to do with vocabulary but more with having a plan and some discipline. You just have to understand the SRS mechanics, learn new radicals as quickly as possible (even easier now with the new lesson ordering), and make sure you do the right reviews at the right time. With a 7-day level-up routine, you don’t even have to wake up at odd hours to do reviews. It’s still a lot of work, but it’s definitely manageable.
There, I’ll check your boxes:
My average level up time is 7.5 days You do lessons as soon as they are unlocked.
I do them all within an hour, so they mostly stick together between reviews.
You do all lessons at once.
Same as above. Also, I don’t use any reorder script.
You do all reviews within 10 minutes of them becoming available.
I do all the reviews within their hours. If its a small not level critical review (Below 30 items), I let it compound until it grows to more than 60).
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night ever let me go to sleep without Lessons at 0 and Reviews at 0.
You never get kanji or radicals wrong.
That one’s easy. You can mess up the first batch plenty of times. As long as you don’t mess up the second batch, which is always smaller, mistakes are a non-issue.
☐ You are a wizard.
Not yet, in 4 years.
@yoshindustry I’m also surprised at people who say they skip vocab, they’re essential for me to remember the kanji better and it’s just asking for trouble later on.
Definitely agree with the routine and discipline, that’s how I got it down from 10-8 to solid 7s, and it’s even more manageable than it used to be now.
I still do leave some vocab lessons for Current level-1, though (and spread over 3-7 days.) But it is essential to try to kick those vocabs, not just from lessons, but also out of Apprentice.
I’ve been doing 7/7.5 day levels for basically my whole time and am never more than maybe 20-30 vocab behind when I level up. If you do at least 20 items a day, and maybe 25 now and then to catch up slightly, you’ll never be more than a half level behind on vocab.
You do lessons as soon as they are unlocked.
- Well, I do radical lessons right away and kanji right away after radicals are guru’d. The other kanji and vocab
get spread out.
☐ You do all lessons at once.
- Nope, 10 in the morning, 10 in the evening. That’s been my go-to for almost my entire 280 days. Maybe 5-10%
of the time I do 25 instead or just 10 on maybe 1 or 2 of the days. You do all reviews within 10 minutes of them becoming available.
- If I am awake, then probably. I don’t wake up early or in the middle of the night though. You never get kanji or radicals wrong.
- kinda, I’ve gotten an apprentice radical wrong maybe 2 or 3 times since I started, but it won’t hurt level up
if you get everything else right. As for kanji, I might miss 1 or 2 total every other level, but again, you can
miss up to like 3 and still level up at top speed. You are a wizard.
- I’m not a wizard, Harry, but I am a hairy wizard.
You do lessons as soon as they are unlocked.
You do lessons as soon as they are unlocked.