New to WaniKani. Any tips to learning the new Kanji?

Hey everyone!

I’m new to WaniKani and I as wondering if anyone had any tips and tricks for learning Kanji. I took four years of Japanese in High School which was about 8 years ago but I still remember most of the basics.

How far will WaniKani actually take me in terms of JLPT?
Any good resources for learning grammar online for free?
Any good places to practice listening online for free?

Thank you and I look forward to your guys’ advice and comments.

Hi LemonCone, there are a TON of resources listed in this thread: The Ultimate Additional Japanese Resources List!
And a lot of them are online and/or free :slight_smile:

If you want to see how long it takes to learn the JLPT kanji on Wanikani, check out the chart on this site, which also helps track your progress: wkstats

[EDIT: fixed link, thanks for catching that @rfindley ]

[edit: fixed above now] The numbers in the link above are a typo :slight_smile:
Here’s a shortcut to the relevant chart, which doesn’t require entering your API key:

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Wow! Thanks @Saruko and @rfindley that chart that goes over the levels in WaniKani and JLPT is pretty interesting and promising. How long would you say it takes to get through each level? WaniKani seems to prevent you from taking lesson after lesson so that you don’t get overloaded with new information. Just wondering how long it may take to get through each level.

The absolute fastest is 6 days 20 hours for most levels, though levels 1 & 2, and 46 through 60 (excluding 48) are short (3 days 10 hours). But you’d have to get up in the middle of the night sometimes to achieve that.

Most people go at least a little slower than that, and some a lot slower. It’s best to find the right pace for yourself over time. If you have specific goals to meet, go ahead and push hard to meet them, but be careful, because Wanikani’s workload can creep up on you, and if life throws a bump in your path, you could burn out and lose motivation.

Going max speed will get you to level 60 in about 1 year. Taking 1 month per level will take you 5 years to reach level 60. You can monitor your estimated completion date on the site linked above, including hypothetical estimates if you want to speed up or slow down.

Even after you reach level 60, it takes a minimum of 6 months (approximately) to burn all of your items. So, count on at least 1.5 years at maximum speed.

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