So, I reached level 60 a week ago. I had timed it to coincide with my one year WaniKani anniversary (which I succeeded) but was so busy and so sapped of energy that I only got round to shouting about it now.
I also haven’t had any cake yet… I’ll get some this weekend!
📈 Stats
If you have read any of my posts (there’s not many to be fair), you’ll know that I love stats and anything to do with measuring my progress (see post). So here’s a collection of stats and charts accompanied with some words.
Time per level-up (wkstats)
As you can see, I maintained a fairly consistent seven days per level and three and half days for each fast level. My main ‘blip’ was on level 22. Not because it’s a particularly difficult level, just because I was on a staycation at the time and missed some key reviews.
Accuracy (wkstats)
My accuracy I think is slightly better than average? I think the more interesting analysis here is seeing how my accuracy fell over time…
Accuracy over time
This is a chart I plotted by taking the number of passed and failed reviews for each month from the WaniKani Heatmap. My accuracy really took a nosedive in 2021. I can’t really place the blame on the number of reviews. I think it’s because the kanji you learn in WaniKani get progressively harder. And by that I mean the kanji you learn:
- Have more strokes and just look more complex
- Come with mnemonics that sometimes include four or five radicals
- Are much more visually similar to other kanji you learned
- Are less common and less likely to be reinforced as often in the wild
Heatmap
Apart from my atrocious track record the last couple of weeks, I think I did alright turning up to WaniKani every day and bashing out those reviews. I think the interesting thing to note here is that I apparently spent just over 200 hours doing reviews. From what I’ve seen from other posts, this seems quite low? I’m going to take a guess that that’s due to my relatively high accuracy (until recently) and because I quite literally bash through those reviews.
🖍 Tips
- If you haven’t already, check out the OG guide to WaniKani
- If you want to go at maximum speed or near maximum speed (like me, I guess?), please bear in mind that you will need at least two of the following (if not all):
a. Time (I was spending two hours a day on WaniKani by the end, I know others spend a lot more)
b. High accuracy (to reduce the number of reviews, time you spend on WaniKani and ultimately to keep up your morale)
c. Speedy reviews (again to reduce time spent on WaniKani and to make a large review pile seem less intimidating) - Read Japanese - to reinforce what you’re learning! (Check out the Master List of Book Clubs)
- Spend time with the WaniKani community (there’s a lot of nice, helpful people) but be careful of spending too much time on the forums when you have lessons or reviews to do…
👋 About me
Heya, my real name is Helena. 
I’m 25, half-Japanese and work as a software engineer (just like half of the WaniKani community). I started learning Japanese just over a year ago. It was not too long after the pandemic started and I really wanted to do something with the extra time I had. Learning Japanese seemed like the obvious choice for me because it was it a way to reconnect with my heritage and atone for my sins (I really rejected learning and being Japanese when I was younger 
). Anyway, if you want to find more about how I spent the past year learning Japanese, and the resources I used, I wrote this:
A year into learning Japanese
What’s next?
Well, in the immediate term I have a huge pile of lessons and reviews to work through.
Beyond that, I’m really looking forward to spending less and less time on WaniKani! The main reason I’ve been so shit at keeping up with my reviews in last few weeks is that I’ve actually been outside and hung out with real humans. So, I’m kind of replacing WaniKani with socialising I guess?
In terms of my other Japanese studies, I’m going to continue reading. I have a 2021 goal of reading two Japanese books a month, which you can track in 多読/extensive reading challenge. I also plan to take the JLPT mock N2 exam in July and hopefully take the real thing in December.
Best of luck to everyone who’s still climbing! You will get there eventually.
Congratulations! 
Amazing!