No, that was a blatant lie. The most difficult levels are 50+ because of the content itself. The words are weird and niche, the mnemonics are bad, and overall you’re exhausted and want to get to lvl 60 asap. Plus, these are also fast levels, so some people are rushing through them. All in all, those felt like the most difficult and the least rewarding levels.
But levels 6-10 are probably the levels most users drop out. Not because those are difficult but because most people aren’t that motivated to stay for the long term.
what levels are hardest is going to be a very individual thing. what one can say ist that level 5 has the most lessons, and that they stay high until about level 13. level 14 has a massive drop in the number of radicals, which makes it easier to go fast (because of maths). so if you’re taking speed and number of lessons as a stand-in for how hard levels are, it (statistically) gets easier then.
personally, i did find it got easier, but at the same time my workload has been slowly but steadily increasing. 200+ reviews a day is normal now, where at level 10 it was more like 150. and first burns are incoming next week
There is a huge gap in quality mnemonics in early levels, which got me very very interested in WK as soon as I started in it and because I always remembered them on reviews.
But then I dont know, the civilian who wrote the later mnemonics just did a table flip (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ and that’s what we have now.
I suspect they’ve spent a lot more time revising earlier mnemonics because it affects a much larger amount of their customers. In other words, later mnemonics are probably just mnemonics that have had fewer revisions since they were first written. Because of that, I wouldn’t say they were lazy with the later mnemonics, they just have been much more diligent with the earlier ones because they have to allocate their limited time to what’s more important.
If you think a mnemonic could be improved, try sending them an e-mail indicating which mnemonic you think is not good. I have done so myself.
Well if your universe of exp is only as large as Level 10… then I suppose it could feel that way…
Found some increase in steepness of path at 11-20… but felt like genuine work thru Death and Hell. Paradise felt like a respite but oddly the workload wasn’t any less (still plenty of opportunity to pick up leeches)… and Reality, as mentioned above… is a surreal last two miles on foot in the jungle, before dawn
I’m a beginner as well and I find it helpful to create my own personal mnemonics by connecting the items to my hobbies and other things I’m familiar with. I also use words from another language that I know, jokes, memes, and a good dose of swear words. You know, things that aren’t going to work for everyone for one reason or another.
No way. 6-10 are easy - not as easy as 1-5, but still easy. At this point the kanji are still relatively simple, none of them look almost like other kanji yet (IIRC), most of the meanings are relatively straightforward and concrete, you don’t have a zillion synonyms (or worse, near-synonyms!), and your workload is still increasing if you’re going at a fairly quick pace (7-10 days per level).
You probably won’t start burning anything until you’re in the teens, if you’re going that speed.
Motivation is also a factor. When you start something new - like, say, learning some ridiculously hard Asian language - you’re all gung-ho for a couple months, more or less, and then the shine wears off. Where are you in WK after a couple of months, when that happens? Probably around level 10. Once it’s not really fun anymore and you have to force yourself to study, WK gets subjectively harder and this is why people probably quit or burn out. But this is a really individual thing - some people have a long term goal of living in Japan or watching all the anime that drives them forward, other people are really disciplined and can force themselves to study with relative ease, others have a lot of free time to do their studying in. And others are dabblers who never cared that much, easy quitters, or too busy with work/school/family to do WK except at a reduced speed.
None of that has anything to do with how hard WK is objectively, but it’s going to affect your experience.
And yes, the vast majority of users drop out by level 10. To get into the teens you have to be committed. To get past the teens, you have to be REALLY committed… only a few percent of users make it that far, or something like that.
also people tend to overwhelm themselves starting several srs or study programs in the still/beginning “shine moment” and quickly burnout.
I even avoid those threads here people saying I use, this, that and that and more of that, duolingo, genki, etc all mixed together.
I know myself, lazy student such as me, I stick to wk so far and now, only now, that I have begun to understand the srs how it is supposed to work, their schedule and I started grammar with shirimono and still find it overwhelming somedays when I have both reviews to do.
My experience is that it only gets harder as you go up in level. You get more and more items that are almost the same and it all blurs together over time.
The early levels kanji are simple but they are full of exceptions and you don’t really get a feel for guessing onyomi yet. Kunyomi also can sometimes be easier when the similar meanings share the sound like 上る 登る 昇る
Loved how you put that about WK holding our hand. I feel the same way, WK or my word learning is the only aspect of my Japanese learning journey I can do easily because it is so accessible.
I wonder, is there a Gramma study tool like WK to learn daily? I followed the Genki book for a while but fell off the wagon because I find studying with a book that much harder than a website.
Well yes but actually… no. There are some exceptions like rendaku that you will pick up, and there will always be exceptions with no regard to readings. I guess I would word it better as less readings per word, but feel free to correct me.
I think readings generally get much easier because there is a limited set of them and many kanji that look similar share the same on’yomi. And kanji with similar meanings sometimes share kun’yomi.
There’s Bunpro. It’s still in development though so it’s not as comprehensive as WK. I like it and find it helpful to keep track on the grammar points I already studied and those still ahead of me though I just ordered books to complement my studies. Not Genki mind you. After some research I felt the book was really pretty but not ideal for self studying.
(I kinda wish there was a place on WK where people from the same tier groups (pleasant, painful, death etc.) could exchange their thoughts on how they actually currently feel in their studies and what resources they find helpful).
I can’t say from experience, but I’m pretty sure once you start burning items the difficulty hits mostly a plateau. But my best advice is to just space your lessons out. Usually doing them all at once makes them easy to forget. And it’s best not to rush either, learning a language is something that’ll be with you throughout the rest of your life. So quality learning>quantity learning.
Also, some days will be harder than others, but you’ve got this!
