Level 60 is closer than you think

It is kinda weird to write this post. During the last levels, I always thought “oh, level 60 is still so far away, I’ll rather do my reviews instead of worrying what comes after WK”. But now I’m there. Level 60. Only 32 Kanji left + some ~100 vocab. This is it.

Well, first of all, I’d like to thank the entire WK team for creating this incredibly efficient app.
My WK journey began in October 2019, when I learned about WK through a friend, took the first three trial levels and was not sure what to think about it. But 2020 came around and I thought “wouldn’t it make sense to learn at least a few kanji before I study abroad?”. So I began taking WK seriously. That was in January 2020, but then came March. About 5 days before my planned flight to Japan, entry bans where installed everywhere and instead of seeing a new country, I was now stuck at home. Honestly, WK has helped me greatly to get through this last year as it gave me a solid routine. On the other hand, I’m well aware that I wouldn’t have been able to go through WK at this pace without the pandemic. Well, everything has its up- and downsides, I guess.
WK has served me well and I hope I have served the crabigator well. The SRS system worked out for me, and I am thankful for the great implementation of it that is WK.

Although… I surely hate it sometimes.

Also, a huge thank you to the whole community. One can’t emphasize enough how friendly the atmosphere in this forum is. Although I’m not a frequent poster (I’m mostly just posting silly memes in the WK memes thread), I like browsing through different topics here a lot.
A big shout out to the Let’s climb Tokyo Skytree - level 60 in spring 2022 study group. You are the best! You will all climb that tower and we will stare down at Tokyo together next spring, I am sure! Big BBQ grill next to the main antenna. Cake afterwards! Special thank you to @Marifly for creating this wonderful thread! Of course, I also need to mention my bud @RoseEater , who was my climbing partner for quite some time in 2020. I will never forgive you how you sneaked past me during the levels 30-40, leaving me behind like some rookie climber :triumph: .
Dear script writers. You know, I’m a simple man. I see stats scripts, I click download and like. You don’t need to offer me undo functionalities or any quality of life improvements. A graph, a table, a progress bar. That’s what I need, what I long for. Give me pie charts. Give me networks, graphs. Give me more. Give me

Stats!

stat1

Finally, thank you, my brain. For going through this with me.

Seriously, sometimes I’m just amazed out how well my brain can remember some of those kanji I haven’t seen for months. SRS is like magic.

WK related tips and tricks

There are plenty of tips and tricks from other lvl 60 posts out there, more detailed than anything what I’ll write here, but I’ll just add to them what worked for me.
It was somewhere around level 10 that I realized how the SRS system works. If you want to maintain a consistent level up speed, you need to know the review stages and the times intervals between reviews by heart. There is like no way around it. With that, I managed to get somewhere around 7-9 days between level ups. Organizing lessons and reviews after a schedule that respects the SRS time intervals is the key. I haven’t used any undo scripts or the like. Just “vanilla” WK with a few stats scripts for the dashboard.
I do reviews three times a day: morning, 4-5h after morning (whatever that time might be), evening / night. Never woke up in the middle of the night to do reviews (like @MegaZeroX :eyes: ).

My lesson schedule was something like this:

1st day: Level up! → do lessons up to and including new radicals (after redicals only new kanji will appear). Sometimes I would not do all vocab lessons on the day I level up and would get to the radical lessons only on the next day. The radicals should get guru’d and unlock kanji (greyed out on the dashboard at first) as soon as possible, since it is this second wave of kanji that guru’ing takes the most time on a level. If you make only few mistakes with all kanji / radical reviews, your level up time will simply be constrained by (time for radicals to guru) + (time for second batch of kanji to guru) which is at least 7 days by design of the SRS intervals. But you can optimize your review and lesson schedule to get near this lower boundary.

2nd to 4th day: with the radicals in the review loop, do ~10 kanji lessons a day.

5th day: radicals would have become guru now, unlocking new kanji. do all new kanji lessons.

6th to 8th day: do ~20 vocab lessons a day. these unlock gradually as you guru the first batch of kanji by now.

9th day: guru second batch of kanji → Level up!

For the fast levels (from level 43 onwards), I recommend to keep your previous routine. This is what I did. I mean you can cram all those kanji in your brain in 2 months less, but at a much higher load and it will be much more frustrating. Keep your pace, go a consistent speed, don’t burn out. Saving 2 months by going through 2 months of hell is not worth it.

Okay, that’s all I can think of now. I really wish you all that you’ll reach level 60 eventually. Just keep on reviewing, yes? Level 60 is closer than you think.

Anyway, I have paid for a life time sub, so…

e2

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おめでとう!

Just under 530 days… I am hoping I can track to roughly that at worst. 263 days in, 263 days studied, level 30. From what I have read, the later levels are faster to level up as there is fewer or no radicals to learn, so all the kanji is open from the beginning. Just have to be careful not to level up without doing those dang vocab!

I hope to see you on the summit of WaniKani mountain!

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Thank you! :grinning:
Yes, guru’ing the second batch of kanji is not necessary for level up on the later levels (fast levels). Vocab is also one of the things why I would recommend keeping your pace. You need this time to learn vocab. At the same time, vocab also helps you reinforcing the new kanji, so don’t skip them.

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おめでとう!

The top of the skytree is getting to be an actual party, isn’t it? :smiley:

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Will you really push that blue button? :smiley:

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おめでとう。

That was mad fast.

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I think it’s 12 levels away. :thinking:

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Congrats on reaching the end! ^>^ :tada: :tada: Please, have this cake! :cake:

tenor

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Congratulations! Much earned cake!

image

Do you have a new plan for going to Japan?

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Yoooooo! Congratulations my fellow climbing chum! :partying_face: :cake:

image

Very well deserved cake after a hard climb.

I also hate 就職 & 就業 btw, that meme is accurate :fist_right:

unlike my accuracy scores for these two, probably

This is what I want to see when I reach the pearly gates.

I had to run ahead to get the executive lounge prepared for your arrival party!

and I checked your profile everyday to keep tabs on your progress :smiling_imp:

What are your plans now (besides resetting)?

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おめでとう!

i’m still in awe of everybody who reaches level 60, even though i am fiercely determined to get there as well! so i hope to see you sometime next spring at the top of the sky-tree :smiley:

(depending on the virus situation and everything i seriously intend to be there :wink: )

…also, what’s that last graph from? i’ve seen it before, but can’t remember what script it’s from?

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おめでとう!
ColossalDelayedAmericantoad-max-1mb

now you have to finish 10k core deck as well :slight_smile:

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I have a system. I am still streamlining here and there but it’s pretty solid.

My brain REALLY hates seeing lessons there. But I am training my brain to not care. As much anyway.

I keep my Apprentice items between 100-130. I don’t focus on a 7 day level up; I am more a 10 day level upper and it’s working well.

When I learn a set of items, anywhere from 5 to 25, I will wait 2 hours, hit BishBashOnce. 2 hours later I do the Apprentice 1 to 2 SRS level up and it seems that this way, kanji and vocab are sticking better. Less leeches and all that.

I will stick to learning my vocab because those are the things that seem to reenforce everything. :wink:

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Haha, I hope not :smile: But who knows? Maybe someday

Thanks a lot!

Not really :neutral_face: Japan has banned basically all incoming touristic travel for a year already and I don’t think this will change soon, say at least for this year. Maybe next year is realistic, but whether I can make a trip then also depends on my personal situation (I’m graduating this year and looking for a job and I’ll have to see how that goes). :crossed_fingers:

I really hope so! Would be so cool if at least some of us could meet at the Skytree in May 2022 in real life. I’d be in :star_struck:

That last graph is from WaniKani Time Machine.

I’m definitely considering it :thinking:
Does it include those hiragana language bits that I always forget? Like これから or それとも? I need to work on these so badly :smile:

First, listening! Oh, Listening, my nemesis! I need to listen so much more. I can understand slow simple talk, like Nihongo con Teppei’s Beginner podcast, but his Intermediate podcast? :exploding_head: my brain lags behind after a few words because I’m only processing the syllables with half the speed he is talking… My dream is to understand what they are talking about on this Japanese Radio channel (Listen to エフエム茶笛 (Chappy) 77.7 from Saitama live on Radio Garden – Radio Garden) I’ve stumbled upon recently. I think this is normal speed talking. But I have no idea (yet) what they are talking about. I need to know!

For grammar, I think I will go through Tae Kim’s grammar guide from the beginning. I have finished Genki I and II a few weeks ago, but I wanted to review the basic topics once again from a different perspective before I continue with more complicated grammatical constructions.

Reading is a bit put back for the moment, but I would really like to join one of the book clubs as soon as my exam period is over.

Yes, definitely don’t underestimate the importance of the first review session from Apprentice 1 to Apprentice 2 for an item. I noticed that when I delayed these reviews I got much worse accuracy later.

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press the button

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