I was summoned.
Iām not the only one who came here with that level, by the way. I know @SyncroPC also joined at a level >N1 (I donāt know if they have the actual piece of paper).
And also yes, Iāve been enjoying the ride. It really helped to hunt down some weakness I still had, hiding in my kanji/vocab knowledge. For me, it was worth it, especially with the discount on lifetime (which should come around soonish, by the way)
Thank you for taking the time to reply to me in such detail! 
Thanks for the link! Iāve read some about that before, but it was a pretty fun read. 
all that turtle talk and burning of the kanji/vocab makes more sense now!
Perfect! 
what more can one ask of in their studies. How are you continuing them, if you donāt mind my curiosity?
Yeah, I know about 500 kanji by sight and meaning, but only know the roughly 300 N4 kanji with reading. Thank you for the estimation. Iām guessing lvl 16 should be comfortably doable in 3 months or so~
Right?? 
Thanks for dropping nameās and info! That sure sounds like the kind of experience Iād like to have, too! Very encouraging!
Thank you for your time and effort, and most of all your kind words! I shall look through the forum some more these next days!
Thatās quite the effective summon! 
Thank you for sharing your experiences with me! I truly appreciate it.
Well, I do like discounts! 
so it will come around sometime around the new year, Iām guessing? That is very good to know!
Thanks again, I appreciate the extra information! Itās gonna help with the decision making!
Since my first post, Iāve also happened upon the reform thatās in the works here. Looks like itās not a bad time to start WK.
Anyway, Iām looking forward to getting to know you all a bit better over the next weeks (and who knows, maybe years 
) ćććććććććć¾ćļ¼
If I remember correctly from last year, the discount should be officially announced (and should start) in 10 days or so. Itās usually $100 off of the lifetime. So $200 instead of $300.
So, I 
suggest you to give WK a try! By level 9, youāll have already learned 309 kanji and 908 words For level 16, itās 556 kanji and 1735 words 
Level 9 is around 2 months, if you go for a 10 day/level speed.
Where I got these cool stats: [STATS] Statistics site
For the level that you seem to be at, Iād definitely recommend a combo between Wanikani, Kitsun and Bunpro. Once you get a little more comfortable kanji/vocab/grammar wise, you should give FloFlo a try (sorry, Iām running out of time, canāt really do a more detailed explanation xD - just check the links I just shared with you).
Personally, Iām doing extremely well. Learning around new 35 words/day and now slowly trying to get into the daily habit of reading books/watching media in Japanese (the later with JP subs). Iāve been chatting with natives pretty much everyday on Hellotalk (app to find language partners - check it out), but I feel like I need to broaden my exposure a little bit more. Once I get that sorted out, Iāll go back to study grammar (N2) and Iāll restart with iTalki lessons (mainly for speaking practice - check that website out as well).
Andā¦ I thinkā¦ thatās it
That fits very nicely in my schedule, what with wanting to finish some levels before deciding anyway! 
Thank you for all the links, especially since youāre short on time! I will definitely check them out tomorrow probably. (okay, already looked at bunpro and kitsun 
) Also, I love me some stats.
Your Japanese schedule, if you will - or maybe just habits - sounds very nice. Iām working at getting there. What are you watching/reading?
Iām fine talking to Japanese people usually, since theyāre very good at adjusting the difficulty level. Also, texting is great. Additional option of actually looking up words you donāt know, instead of missing it. (oh, eh, some context: currently in Japan on a working holiday visa)
Someone called me.
Yes, Iāve also joined Wanikani (a lot) after passing N1. I do have my piece of paper, but I took it five years ago by the end of my first year in Japan, so I have serious doubts I would pass it again if I tried it now, even though my spoken Japanese is by far better than it was by then.
I joined Wanikani because after years in Japan I felt like I was forever stuck with the 1300 or so kanji you need to get away with everyday average reading and never got past that. I had tried RTK and Anki decks before, but I felt like Wanikani has a good short-term goals approach, a nice design and a good community, what would help me to stick to end of the Joyo Kanji. That being said, I also study kanji in parallel the traditional way, using the Kanken books and DS game, also because I want to pass the kanken exams to hand it to my company.
Iām sure one can find what WaniKani mainly offers by using a good kanji book and an Anki deck, but the thing is WaniKani gamifies it for you, puts it into a nice design, helps with the management and gives you a nice community that does book clubs (not that I take part in any). I think it is a nice deal.
For now, Iāve been just watching anime with JP subs and some manga I had here. My first non-fiction book might arrive tomorrow though Other than that, I might subscribe to Netflix JP to get some exposure to actual real people. I could do youtube videos, but everything seems very meh (and they donāt have subs, which I still need).
Yuup! This is also why I still appreciate using subs. I see the word right away instead of guessing xD
Ohhh, nicee!! 
Howās that experience going?
Same 
Iād say a bit more than 1300 but the actual number doesnāt really matter.
And yes, while there are many options to learn kanji out there, I never found one that I could stick to. At least, not anymore; I used to be fine with barebones Anki back in the days I was preparing for JLPT. Gamification plus community has proven very effective.
One additional bonus: while preparing for the kanken (well, just level 5), I found that the WK āradicalsā really helped get a simpler idea of the structure of kanjis. I suddenly didnāt have to remember a bunch of strokes, just two or three words. E.g. ꮵ: 9 strokes versus comb+ikea
For me, at least, the WK radicals are more useful for recall than recognition.
(Kinda hyped about the overhaul tomorrow, btw)
You definitely need to get to Japan. Iām here because I went and knew very little. I fell in love with everything and now I need to know how to speak and read it for when I go back. I truly hope you get and have the adventure of a lifetime. Itās more than you can imagine and will make a huge impact on you.
Also thanks for the tips in your review, implementing those ASAP.
Really appreciate the kind words Iām on it 
And Iām glad that you got to appreciate your trip! What was your favourite thing that you got to experience in Japan?
Let me know if I can help you in any other way \o/
All of it. 
Iāve considered getting a Netflix subscription myself, since I heard thereās lots of Japanese content on thereā¦ But I didnāt know you could or had to get a Japanese one. Good to know!
Iāve found a lot of YouTubers follow the theme Japanese TV shows have going, especially the game shows. So theyāre ridiculous, often fast paced, with that special, Japanese humor that is actually often quite meanā¦ Yeah, I donāt really like those either as for Japanese speaking YouTube channels, Iāve found foreigners making videos for a Japanese audience more my thing. Theyāre also a bit easier to understand, which might not be a good thingā¦ Seeing as it reinforces non Japanese accents.
Very nicely! The first weeks were a bit overwhelming in the language department, that is to say I used exclusively English in the 2 weeks I was in Tokyo, because it was easy. So if youāre anything like me, who shies away from difficulties and actually using new languages Iām not confident in - Tokyo is a great experience, but maybe take to the suburbs/rural areas/other, smaller cities where the locals arenāt that used to accommodating tourists with English.
But maybe thatās just me. Iām sure you can use Japanese in Tokyo as well. Maybe.
Iāve visited Japanese language school for a couple weeks (homestay included), WWOOFed on a dairy farm in Okinawa and will be starting my first actual, paid job next week in a hotel in Nagano. (nothing fancy, just cleaning staff for the ski season )
Iām kind of worried about that. Hereās hoping we can both get used to the new routine quickly!
Using radicals was not introduced to me by Wanikani because my original Japanese language school gave some emphasis on radicals (I mean the official ones, éØé¦) with their Japanese names and all, so I always thought it was natural using them, but it seems it doesnāt get much attention on some other methods.
But they surely help a lot on remembering the kanji, and I also find knowing the Japanese names pretty useful for talking with Japanese people (since they all know them).
Same, the language classes I attended in Japan had some focus on actual radicals, but thatās why I mentioned āradicalsā instead.
Knowing that a kanji has a ęå or čå is nice, but it doesnāt help with the rest of the kanji. The usual way is to use another kanji with the same part āoh, the right part is like in ęā But then, you have to remember ę first, which is a bit of a circular problem for me. Giving a specific name to those parts as well is helpful, in my opinion.
Funny enough, the Japanese school who taught me radicals was the one back at home. My Japanese teachers in Japan couldnāt care less about it, haha.
Wow. Just found this post and Iām thrilled to have found it and the knowledge within but also it makes me feel pretty dumb. I first joined WK in 2013 (this is my second account) and in 2014 I quit around level 18. I decided Japanese wasnāt very useful and I had other pursuits so why was I learning it when I could focus on them instead? (spoiler alert I didnāt really benefit from dropping it, in the end)
At some point in 2015 I started over so I created a new account (you used to not be able to reset your account). I didnāt start using that account until January 2017, but I got really sick in the middle of the year for a while and was still only level 7 and it knocked it off my schedule.
Now, I am determined to actually finally get through WK, become conversational, literate, etc. But wow. I have been messing with this crap for 5 years and here comes a babby who did it in 1 year. Feels bad man.
Anyway, thank you, good babby, for the tips on how to get through WK before dying of old age. I really wish when I signed up for WK, when it was in beta, when I was still in my twenties, it explained this.
japanese teachers in japan teach mostly chinese people it seems, and those progress very quickly. no use wasting time on that lone westerner in the classroom.
Iāve never been to one, but people do say private Japanese courses are filled with Chinese, so I imagine it is true.
I attended ę±äŗ¬å¤å½čŖå¤§å¦ classes (not that I was a student there, tho), my class had no Chinese person. We were 2 from Latin America, 3 westerns, 2 Mongolians and 1 from Israel. But I guess the main reason was that we all arrived Japan on intermediate level, so itās very complex to make a curriculum that makes sense to everyone in the class. Most of the time we were learning grammar, writing endless compositions (very, very useful) and training speech.
My Japanese teacher probably assumed that if we got to that level we probably already knew how to study Kanji by ourselves and just gave us the weekly list of new Kanji to remember and used her class time on other things.
You donāt! Well, Netflix has the rights for some shows, depending on the countryā¦ Basically, Iāll subscribe to Netflix and use a VPN to fool them into believing Iām in Japan (so that I get more JP content) 
Sooo much this. I donāt have much interest in most popular youtubersā¦ when I look at Youtube JPā¦ I just canāt xD
Yeaaaahā¦ comfort zone is hell 
But outside of Tokyo/opportunities where u got to use Japanese, how was it? I guess that they were tough, but followed by a great feeling of accomplisment 
Ohh, quite adventurous! Good luck for this new challenge of yours Iām gonna give my best! 
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Hey, no worries. Donāt punish yourself for your past. They were lessons. But do push yourself today for the sake of a better tomorrow I reached level 60 in 1 year, but there were a bunch of things I did not do for āreasonsā (read, excuses). I have this goal of launching my own business since I was 20 (3 years ago) and never went for it (trying now).
Youāre always in time to succeed. The dude that founded KFC only did it at 62 years of age. Sold it for 2 million at the age of 75.
Appreciate the kind words. Iām sure that this time youāre getting the golden badge Let me know if I can help you in any way possible.