My reviews usually end in 60-80%

I don’t even know what to do about this? I don’t even know what I’m doing wrong? But I want to fix, whatever this is??

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Why do you think this is bad?

What are your mistakes when you get an item wrong? This is where you can start to improve. I sometimes make stupid mistakes, forget rendaku or simply produce typos. If I was more focused while doing the reviews, I would avoid those mistakes.

Other than that you have to take your time doing the lessons to really remember the mnemonic. If the mnemonic does not work for you, think of an own story and add it to the system. Whatever sticks to your mind is allowed.

You can also do a post-review-review in which you double-check your incorrect items right after the end of your sessions to reinforce them. Apart from that: mistakes are part of the learning experience, so do not get discouraged. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I make typos, but the majority of the time I completely forget the word or the reading. That’s why I’m worried, because I forget everything very easily.

I should do that,

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I’m having the same problem right now but it’s normal when learning something new and difficult. At some point, it will just click and that’s due to repetition and some self study outside of the review/quiz.

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I have been there. I went through about a 3 week period when I was getting accuracy like that. It was at about level 10, also. Now, I get over 90% pretty much every time.

What I changed: For lessons, I study them really hard.
The ones that I kept missing, I eventually learned and started leveling up.

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It hasn’t clicked yet,

yeah maybe I should study more I;m just so used to not doing thaT

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Oh,

I have to give the lessons more time

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You could always keep a log of all of the ones you get wrong. I did that for a few months. After every session I would write out the kanji, meaning and reading in a notepad and also log my overall accuracy

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Hm,

maybe

I just believe that my memory is bad

I can’t write the kanji at all without looking at it

but I can read it

Well… looks like I need to buy some colored pens now. Thanks for the idea/pic!

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After every review I do I like to review the ones I got wrong right after. I screenshot it and I go back and look at the screenshots to re-review which ones I got wrong.

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To give an alternative perspective, my review accuracy has been in the range of about 60% to 90% over most of my time with WaniKani. I didn’t really see much change over time. Despite this, I’ve managed to make significant progress. Getting such low accuracy is demoralizing and frustrating, but if you just keep your head down and do your reviews, you’ll definitely make progress.

A note about self-study: you’re of course free to study however you like, but reviewing things outside of the SRS schedule makes the SRS less effective. Consider that when planning your strategy.

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Ooh I’m not sure about that. That would be like saying WK is its own closed ecosystem and anything studied outside that is harmful when, in fact, WK is a supplement to the outside world and extra study is essential. If you were on Lv30 say and by some miracle memorised every character overnight then the next day you wouldn’t need the SRS or WK. Knowing the kanji just speeds up the process and lets you focus on others you know less well. They still all go through the same process, the same repetition pattern etc. Of course sometimes it’s nice to just say sod it and let the SRS retest you until you get it!

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It really depends what you need. Being able to read and write would be great and writing will probably help you remember the kanji and thus aid with reading. However, writing is time consuming and may not be that handy - the Japanese, like all of us, are doing it less. So for me recognition and reading is way more important. I copy/paste or type some tricky kanji and vocab into Google Keep, make themes around similar words, sounds, radicals etc but I hardly ever bother to write anything on paper. The Kanji Study Android app is not a bad idea if you do fancy writing.

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What you need is one of these bad boys

SY355

Read somewhere that using different colours in text can help with memory retention, so when I study on paper I do Japanese in red, English in green, and grammar notes in black. In that other notepad I showed the kanji are black because I had a little brush pen I wanted to play with.

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( I mean tbh I do mostly TYPE kanji instead of write, but I still find it neat to be able to write it

I might get the app, that is

if I have space-

Memories of trying to push all of the colors at once with multi color pens

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From what I can recall, the early levels were the hardest for me. Kanji look so similar (for instance, 木 本 ), throw in some exceptions, rendaku’s and on’yomi and kun’yomi confusions… But over time, I think, people start to learn how to learn kanji and everything will come a lot easier. It would help if you could specify what kind of mistakes you make. ^^

Something that helped with the frustration of getting low review scores, is installing a script/add-on to hide the percentage bars. Wanikani may have its strengths that it is build like a game, but don’t lose focus of what it is about: learning kanji. As long as you’re doing that, it is ok. :slight_smile:

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I forget the readings/meanings, that’s my problem. If it was me getting a low percentage about like, typos or mistaking kanji for one another, I really wouldn’t worry. But nothing is sticking. I think I should be worried about that. Am I truly really learning?