So i have been on WK for about a year and some change, in that time i have had stretches where i couldn’t use the app for various reasons be it injury or job change. But man, I had it down to almost 2000, then i worked it down to 0, gained a level or two as a result, then i was getting 150-200 reviews a day. Then i fell off again, to about 2000+. Now i’m in the process of working it down AGAIN (603 remaining as of now). Is there any way that after i work this down again, i can make it so it’s something i can keep up with a little easier, or is that just how the program is and i should stop whining and get after it until i get to level 60?
either way i’m going to keep pushing through, but if there is some way to make it a tad easier outside of the obvious “Get the words down faster”. I would love to hear it.
Keeping your apprentice count in a reasonable range can help with maintaining a more doable amount of reviews per day, so if 150-200/day feels like a little bit too much, then try bringing your apprentice count down, maybe to around 100 or so (or even lower) and see how that works out, and then you can adjust from there
Also, I definitely recommend using vacation mode – if you know you’re not going to be able to keep up with WK, even if it’s just a few days, and especially if it’s for weeks or even months, activate vacation mode so that the reviews don’t keep piling up like that on you
WK can feel challenging especially if it’s not a thing you do daily and make a habit out of, but life happens, so use vacation mode to your advantage when needed and read things outside of WK too to help reinforce the kanji that much more for you
For steady state I’ve been using the “anti-burnout script” as an automated way of moderating lessons to keep reviews in a manageable range. Basically the same suggestion as keeping your apprentice count low, but with a little more rigor. Seems to be working well for me so far… but yeah, if you are going to be away for a while it’s best if you can put it in vacation mode otherwise you’ll be hit with a massive amount of reviews when you get back. If you forgot to turn it on my recommendation would be no new lessons at all until you get things back under control.
I second the idea that you shouldn’t do any lessons until your reviews are in check, it’s likely you’ll be missing some things since you’ve been away for a while, so your apprentice count might pile up a little bit more than what’s comfortable for daily review amounts, so give yourself some time to let that balance before touching any lessons (if you have any)
You mention you once “gained a level or two” while doing stuck reviews - but you can’t gain more than one level without doing lessons, so my recommendation if you’re getting overwhelmed is just that: stop doing lessons. Bring them down to zero for at least a month, do only reviews. Maybe two months, even.
WK has this “flaw” in it design in that it snowballs, quickly. You start doing everything immediately and wanting more and then suddenly you’re waking up every morning to 100+ reviews with 200+ reviews a day and just hating life in general. I was there - I did a level a week all the way to 31, then figured out I was getting so many reviews a day I was happily ignoring most and using the one-on-one script way too much for proper learning. So I stopped five weeks once I reached 31. Then I rushed to 41, stopped five more weeks. I just made it to 46, and this last sprint I did one lesson/two weeks, which has made it all a lot more manageable since it keeps my weekly review count under 700 most of the time, which means fewer than 100 reviews/day on average. It seems to be working, although I’ve stopped doing lessons again. Better stay put a while, deal with some problematic kanji or vocabulary.
Then again, I’m at the point where diminishing returns on new kanji kick in heavily, so i’m not stressed over learning more kanji. At lvl 45, with 1500ish kanji studied, I’ve studied most important ones. Going slowly might not feel as good an idea during lower levels (as I would’ve slapped you silly had you suggested I slowed down at lvl 14 :P)
Ok, moral of the story is to not do lessons. how do you use the scripts mentioned? I do most of my work on the 3rd party mobile app (really wish their was a officially licensed app instead of going to the mobile site). Maybe that is part of the problem too. how can i keep my apprentice count low? Is that even possible on the unofficial app?
Those scripts are for browsers I think you can do it on Firefox on mobile though, but I personally don’t have much experience with this
You don’t need a script to keep apprentice counts low though – what is your current apprentice count at?
You can manage apprentice counts by only doing reviews until you guru enough things out of apprentice, and then slowly do lessons to add items back in to a comfortable amount that will allow for a manageable amount of reviews/day
Right now it’s at 321, hopefully it’ll be closer to 200 or lower by the time i catch up (i’m fighting to keep it under 600 as we speak, really annoys me when i do 100 a day and then they just toss on 75 extra that day basically negating all that i did, with a goal of getting it under 500 tomorrow).
Is there anything i can do about how many it adds on per day while i’m trying to get it under control? it was easy for the first 1000+, but now that i’m in striking distance I have to do 200+ reviews a day just to bring my total count down 100 lower than it was that morning.
Yeah that’s definitely really high, you’ll be getting recurrent reviews like that for about a week or so, so as long as you’re getting a majority of them correct from thereafter, you can guru them and get them out of apprentice to bring it down – there’s nothing you can really do for the time being (i.e. for the next week or so) about the reviews coming back like that, so just keep whittling away until that apprentice comes down!
What amount of reviews are you generally comfortable with/day?
I think 50-100 a day is fine. If i can knock out 20-30 in the morning before work, 20-30 at lunch, and 20-30 when i get home, i think that would be fine. Though i tend to knock out 30-50 in the morning now, but that is more because i’m tired of seeing go so high, so i’m being really aggressive at the moment.
yeah, i think my problem is that since i let it get so out of hand, i try to get through as much as i can, so i don’t spend the amount of time on each word as i really need to absorb it. So when it comes around again, it drops down to apprentice. still trying to find the best way to use wanikani so that i know the words after one or two times through, instead of the vicious cycle i’m currently trapped in. I can’t take my time or the reviews will just pile up and undo all the good i did do. and things like that.
Straight up stop doing lessons until you’re under 200. Personally, I keep it under 150. 160 reviews a day is the most I see and that’s a particularly heavy load.
Yeah then I think you should try to keep your apprentice in the 50-100 range — that should keep it manageable while you adjust and can then work up from there as you retain more
If you find yourself not retaining enough and really struggling, you could always reset back a level or so, but that’s only if you think it’d be the most beneficial thing for you at the moment
how can you reset levels? i feel like that would be admitting defeat, I know its my fault i’m in this mess. i want to work myself out of it, then maybe hang out at the level i’m on for a while until i’m really ready. Will not doing the lessons do that?
What exactly does resetting levels do? Would it remove words i’ve already worked up above apprentice, or just stop the constant flood of more from that level and freeze the progress on the others?
It would be like you literally just got to that level for the first time. All progress above that point would be gone. Notes and user synonyms are excluded from the deletion.
You can always try to just bring your apprentice down and keep doing reviews everyday until you get back down to a manageable amount, it’ll feel tough for a little bit but it’s definitely doable
I myself came back from a 7+ month hiatus without vacation mode and had to struggle against 1500+ reviews and 150+ lessons at level 23, so it’s definitely possible, you just have to be patient with yourself and keep persevering daily with those reviews until you can start doing lessons again and leveling
I think you can do it on Firefox on mobile though, but I personally don’t have much experience with this