I’m on level 3, I just gu’rud all my kanji, but I felt like I was going very slow. After checking my stats, I found that my level up was on avg. 18.5 days! I feel like this is exceptionally slow. I do my lessons as soon as I get them, and do my reviews as soon as I can. I have an accuracy of 88% across my vocabs, kanji, and radicals. How could I improve my speed?!
Thanks so much!
How many lessons have you been doing a day? I checked your profile and it seems that you still have lessons to do. If you don’t do the lessons, you won’t be able to guru the items and therefore level up.
Or don’t you have any lessons unlocked? Because by your level, you should have more items learned or at least as lessons.
There’s a post in this thread called The Ultimate Guide to WaniKani and it talks about speed of learning, they said that checking in 3 times a day due to the SRS algorithm is ideal (because of it being spaced out like 4 hrs, 8 hrs, 1 day, etc).
If you’re not happy with the time you’re taking, it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to fit in an extra session per day of WaniKani. However, there must be reasons for the pace you are at, right? Like work, school, other hobbies, or maybe just different aspects of Japanese calling your attention instead.
Anyway, WaniKani isn’t really a race and you’re allowed to take as much time as you want to finish a level. Some people check in every hour and wake up to do it, some people check in 3 times or less a day. I saw that the average to complete WaniKani was a year 1/2 ~ 2 yrs, but some people can spend even 4 years on it. I guess it depends on motivation for kanji, obsession with WaniKani, outside life factors so you’ll have to think about how you want to balance everything.
My last thought is that if you aren’t already, getting some user scripts might make WaniKani more fun (ex: Anime Context Sentences is pretty entertaining).
I level up on an average of 21 days (going on level 9 in 11 days possibly soon) but I do other Japanese studies other than wanikani. I immerse and do a bit of grammar. I feel that once we consistently do wanikani, whatever speed we go at is okay. So you’re doing okay
First and foremost is accuracy, rather than targeting for least number of days possible.
But it is a different skill from doing “a bit of grammar”, so you will need to find a way differently.
Furthermore, what do you think remembering vocabularies mean? What about Kanji? Are there something that still get passed through by WaniKani without being tested by accuracy?
My typical level up time is 15 days so I wouldn’t say you’re exceptionally slow. My time per level is pretty consistent, and I achieve it by doing 10 lessons per day, and two review sessions per day. When I do less than 10 lessons per day I go slower and when I do more than 10 lessons per day I go faster, so as long as your accuracy stays the same you can speed up by doing more lessons per day… is what I’d normally say. But you do all your lessons as soon as you get them.
If I had to guess, when you do your lessons “as soon as you get them” you’ll be doing a ton of lessons at the same time right? That’s probably not the most efficient way to learn as it encourages spending less time on each lesson initially, which increases the chance of getting items repeatedly wrong in your reviews. My guess is that if you do 15-20 lessons per day instead of all of them at once (and make sure to properly study them) then you’ll be making fewer mistakes and going much faster than I do…
for the first 10 levels I did in 12 days. So I guess you are doing right so far.
Now it is taking me 30 days in hell levels.
I wish my average level up was 18.5 days…! I’m sitting around 25 on average.
That said, my accuracy is really high, 96-97% average globally.
So it’s a trade-off. I think your pace is quite healthy.
A pace you can sustain long term is key: despite the gamification, there are no prizes for going faster. All that matters is what you learn - and retain. I’ve a friend who rushed through wanikani and forgot most of it as a result.
Ultimately, there is no point whatsoever in going faster if you can’t sustain it. After all, making zero progress cause you burnt out is infinitely less efficient than 18.5 days / level 
Unless you have some sort of time-constrained goal in mind, then I don’t think there is such a thing as going too slow. As others have said, learning slowly is better than not learning at all due to burning out. Also, 18.5 days isn’t that unreasonable a pace - if you kept this pace 'til the end you would be level 60 within 3 years, which is pretty good in my eyes.
If you genuinely want to improve your speed though, you could try to match the time that you do your reviews with WaniKani’s SRS timings (I believe they are 4 hours, 8 hours, then 24 hours and so on). The important ones to think about are the 4 hour and 8 hour timings if you want to speed up - to be efficient, you could do your lessons in the morning when you wake up, review then after 4 hours, then review them again after another 8 hours, which means you’d already have them at apprentice 3 within the same day as you learnt them.
I’m only assuming review frequency is what is affecting your speed, as you said that your accuracy is already high (88% is pretty good), and that you say you do your lessons as soon as you get them. If you are already doing reviews as frequently as you can, then I really think it is fine to keep going the way you are, unless you really need to speed up for some reason or another.
Whatever pace works for you is the best pace. While starting out it might seem like a good idea to use WK as a primary resource for learning kanji, it should play a supplementary role. I recommend going at what ever pace you want, and if you have other resources you’re using for grammar, kanji, vocab, etc. use those too so when you come to WaniKani it is just spaced reviews and not the primary source for learning kanji.
All that being said theres nothing wrong with using WK as a main resource but it does have limits depending on your goals. (Speaking as someone who did only WK and BunPro for a year)
i think it depends on how much studying you do per day. If you work in more time for reviews and lessons then your time will decrease. How much do you do per day currently? I do about 15 days a level and thats good enough for me doing 10-20 lessons everyday and reviews throughout.
short answer–yes
Thank you! I understand about that work/school part! I will factor in that srs 4 or 8-hour rule!
Yes, i am doing that
i havent unlocked many lessons in a while, only about 5 in the lest 4 days, because I j gured the remain kanji
thank you!! I want to speed up and get to level 30/40 by august /:
thank you!!!
Why do the Hell levels take you much more time? Is it becoming more difficult later on?
