What’s a good number of items to have in apprentice and guru? Is there an optimal balance? I feel myself beginning to stumble already with 79 apprentice and 315 guru.
1 Like
I think people usually focus on their apprentice count, but it really just depends on you and what you find to be comfortable for you 
I know that’s a pretty generic response, but everyone will tell you a different range that was comfortable for them, it really just depends on the individual – I think the common response is to keep apprentice under 100, but for me it was more like 100-150 as I kept leveling
So if you find 79 to be a stumbling point for you, I’d say to try to keep it somewhere between 50-100 if you’re comfortable with that pace and see if that works out for now – if you still find yourself struggling, keep it more towards 50, and if you find yourself improving, start keeping it more towards 100
As you keep leveling here on WK, you’ll likely find that you get better at learning Japanese, and things will start clicking more for you as your brain figures out and adapts to what you’re doing to it with all these foreign characters ^^
Good luck to you in your studies!
3 Likes
What really matters is the workload, i.e. how many reviews and lessons you do each day. Most (75%) of apprentice items come back within the day, so if you’re not comfortable with 200 reviews a day you probably shouldn’t have 200 apprentice items.
if here its ok? 
So I’m doing kanji now and I think I’ve noticed a problem. Some words like Mountain and Three have the same On’yomi reading which is さん (san). A few other words share the same reading. Is this normal?
Also, I’ve had a problem when during a review I’ve entered the correct reading for a word but it says its incorrect.!
example:
That’s normal. There are 12 kanji with that onyomi taught on WK, and dozens more rare characters with it exist. It’s a function of how the sounds were imported from Chinese, where you could have similar sounds distinguished by tones. You’ll get used to it.
三 (read as さん) is a word, but 山 (read as さん) is not. It can’t stand alone as さん. When it’s read as さん it is a suffix or part of a compound. It’s やま when it’s alone. Be careful about those kanji/vocab distinctions.
You’ve entered にゆう when the correct reading is にゅう. Notice the size of the ゆ.
3 Likes
Not a new to Wanikani question, but I figured I’d ask. Is jlpt n3 in 11 months a reasonable/possible goal? I have a lot of free time. Maybe n4 is more reasonable? I don’t want to go in with unreasonable expectations. Thanks in advance!
I’d say it all depends on what you’re doing study-wise!
It’s estimated that you’d know about 95% of the JLPT N3 kanji at level 35 here on WK, and then making sure you covering all of the grammar points up until N3 of course, and then practicing listening. Have you done any grammar study yet?
It really just depends on what you think you can handle and achieve in that 11 months. You can always set your sights on N3 and then when registration time comes around, you might have a better idea if you should be signing up for N3 or N4, depending on what you were able to achieve in that time period ^^
3 Likes
Well I’ve been on Wanikani for about two months now, and have been working through genki 1 since mid February. I am generally good with language I got 98% in my Latin class, albeit Latin is significantly easier than Japanese. I figured I could work through genki 1 and 2 in eight months, and at my current pace in Wanikani my kanji shouldn’t be a problem.
This has been very helpful~ Thanks!!
To be honest, you’ll probably be in N4. Getting to N3 in 11 months is hard for a lot of people. But guess what, the worse it can happen if you aim for N3 is you being around N4.
Ignore the goals for now. You wanna integrate all the different aspects of Japanese learning into your daily routine. Make it work for you first. Only then, should you focus on pushing your limits (if you wish to).
3 Likes
Just seeing this now. CONGRATS ON 60!!
Did you make a thread and I just didn’t see?
2 Likes
Yes.
2 Likes
Why can’t I search for radicals by my own synonyms, I have to search by Wanikani’s made word. I don’t know those because I always create my own. I am using Wanikani as a dictionary but it’s pretty much impossible to use if I can’t search by using my own synonyms. Can you update the site?
It’s likely a database limitation. The WK meanings are probably indexed, but your meanings are not, which means each search would take an extremely long time to finish if user synonyms were taken into account.
5 Likes
Newbie here. Just signed up. My question is: does the iphone app always give a notification on the hour every hour for review? Or does the length increase between notifications at some point?
Sounds like a good fit for the Open Framework. All user synonyms get cached in the browser, so it’s only 8000-something items to search (assuming all items, not just radicals).
Maybe put in a request in the 'what do you want now" thread…
(It’s probably about a two-dozen lines of code to create an index on meanings. The rest would be interfacing to the search bar.)
3 Likes
How am I supposed to tell the difference between the kanji for “stone 石” and the kanji for “right 右”? They look exactly the same. 