Well, I’ve finally made it. Honestly when I first started, I genuinely thought this was going to be around a 3 year journey for me. I had a really rough beginning as you can tell.
Level up chart
I have always struggled to do lessons, that’s why I didn’t level up sometimes. I just don’t like doing them. Also had a vacation somewhere in there. Starting level 25, I had enough of that and proceeded to sign a contract with the Crabigator, in which the details may not be shared.
Anyway, before I get more into things, let me show you the cake that I am currently eating as I type this.
Cake
I figured I’d get something different than the usual square or circle cakes. Also a whale is a sea creature, he might be a distant cousin of the Crabigator. Would be nice to get a custom WaniKani themed cake, but that’s money I don’t have.
I believe it’s time I introduce myself since I never made the post.
Introduction
sike
Click me next!
Okay, here’s the real introduction…
Actually I’m not too sure what goes in an introduction, I like anime, I guess. I kind of initially got the motivation to start Japanese because I wanted to read a light novel. Waiting for translations takes too long.
As of writing this, I’m 20 years old and I’m president of the united states.
I started WaniKani 632 days ago, so I was pretty close to age 19. My birthday is May 21st.
I graduated High School a year early, took 2 years of graphic design, graduated and finally decided I’m not doing that.
Never had too much interest in much, but I decided to go with a job related to my what my dad works as, makes good money and it’ll be easy for me to get into, so I won’t complain.
As for my language experiences, well I am a native English speaker, and my mother tongue is Sindhi, which most people never have heard of. I can understand Sindhi well, but I struggle speaking it. I also took Chinese in 8th grade, pretty much only remember how to say “I love you”. I then proceeded to take Spanish for like 2.5 years but I also forgot all of that. Now for Japanese, I did try at one point to learn as a kid, but that lasted literally like 1 or 2 days with duolingo. Aside from that, I actually learned a lot just from watching anime, never tried to learn from it, but I know a lot of words, phrases, and grammar from it.
Did I achieve my goals?
Well, if we’re talking about light novels, I’m a coward so I haven’t even touched one yet. Soon though. But I can read manga, yeah. I even fan translated one. There are occasional kanji I don’t recognize and some I just forgot because my brain is empty but I’m quite satisfied with how much I learned from WaniKani. As long as you’re not expecting mastery, you won’t be disappointed. Also make sure you’re aware that WaniKani isn’t a vocabulary service.
Next steps
First off is level 61
I don’t have any intention of quitting WaniKani, still some stuff left to do, I’ll be here on the forums too.
I’ve also been very slow with my grammar studies, I’m going to need to pick that back up as well as simply reading a lot more. My vocab is quite weak in particular.
I plan on going to Japan sometime in 2023, will be my first time there, so much to do, so little time.
WaniKani has definitely helped me feel confident that Japanese is a learnable language, aside from the kanji, I feel like that’s one of the most important things. Thank you Koichi and the rest of the staff for working so hard on the website.
Speaking of thanking people, the whole community is great. I was genuinely shocked at how nice people were when I joined. Lots of people who interacted with me, and/or answered my questions, I’m very grateful. I’ve recommended the forums to people even if they don’t even use WaniKani with how great it is.
I’d also like to thank the draft feature, because just now I somehow closed all 17 of my tabs with some shortcut and I almost died.
If I’m going to tag somebody, I’d like to tag @icefang97 . I haven’t spoken to you in a while but you were the first person I interacted with regularly here and you were a bit of my source of motivation. I hope you’re proud that I finally made it here.
In the beginning of 2022, I was level 15, and here I am at 60. I joined this study buddy race at that time. The goal for the race was level 30, which I figured I could do since I was already half way there, but I wanted to go for at least 35 or 40. Stuff happened and somehow I ended up at level 60. Crabigator does wonders to a man.
Finally, if you have any questions about me, or my journey, anything at all, feel free to ask. I may have forgotten to write something here.
), but congrats! I feel like completing Wanikani is not only great for Japanese but also teaching you a valuable life lesson: if you put your mind to it, and keep at something, even a little bit everyday, it goes a looong way! So that’s great for you that you’ve learned that at 20 yo already, going to be useful for you the rest of your life 
And a nice tale BTW (I knew U were indeed a great writer also 
).
which scripts to use, which kind of drug to skip sleeping (that’s a joke of course 
, I mean your schedule) and which songs you listen in the background to keep motivated… Everything can be of use for us, simple mortals trying to follow the Crabigator.
