Basically, college started and I didn’t have time to touch Japanese for around 2 years. I got to level 39 when I was actually learning, but now I’m struggling with even levels 1-5. However, since I activated vacation mode my review pile is only around 300. I am likely going to Japan in a couple months, so I decided to get back on the grind. Which of these approaches would you all recommend for extended breaks like these:
A: Reset to level 1 (or maybe 5ish) and relearn from there, even though I could pick up the earlier levels quickly and would not be able to review the higher levels for a while.
B: Reset to a higher level (20-30) and pick up the earlier levels through self-study quiz.
C: Don’t reset, use self-study to recall older material.
D: Ditch WaniKani and just use Japanese material (news, etc.), using a dictionary to review things I forgot.
I’ve seen other threads on similar topics, but none about having no exposure for this long. I’d like to know other people’s opinions, as I do not want to reset all the progress I have made but I’m beginning to feel like it’s the only way .
Side note, I started to learn Chinese since I’ll be in Singapore for the next 4ish months and it’s nice seeing familiar characters from WK
My suggestion for someone such as yourself, who appears to have an above-average level of self-awareness, would be to trust your own intuition. Or, try something non-permanent first and adjust as you go, rather than getting stuck in choice paralysis.
D seems like the closest to the most sensible thing, considering your predicament (i.e., likely going to Japan soon), but that also depends on what is your biggest trouble with the language at the moment.
Is your ability to converse decent? Especially with fundamental aspects of fluency, such as being able to discover the meaning of something unfamiliar to you while only utilizing the target language—in other words, if someone says something to you and you feel like you’re misunderstanding an important part of what they’re saying, do you have the tools and know-how to change that to an understanding?
In my experience, while reading level can be helpful in a lot of situations in Japan, and it certainly makes everyday life a lot less tiring, the most important thing is balance in all aspects. You wouldn’t want to be severely crutched by a bottleneck in some other area.
I’d give it some time, self assess and see how comfortable you are with what WK throws at you. Personally, I’d choose option C and just take the beating. But two whole years is a very long time and level 39 means a lot of Burned material you may have forgotten. Maybe cut back to level 10 (like I’ve done twice)?
I might suggest studying every vocab in the electronic dictionary history (that you looked up while reading); then Kanji used in those vocab; then other vocab having that Kanji, that you feel you should already know.
Then after few months?, reset to a low level (5? 10?) and do WaniKani while realizing that there are many other vocabularies having WaniKani Kanji, other readings and unexpected readings. I was reluctant to do Anki for a few months, and WaniKani for a year.
WaniKani is more heavy on recognition, rather than production – which may need more random vocabularies regardless of Kanji, and may also not need as many “active” vocab.
Thanks for the input! My conversational level is pretty low I’ll admit, since most of my immersion came from reading LNs and manga . I agree that I should probably focus on learning (or relearning) through simply practice, both conversational and reading.
I do want to use WaniKani, even if it is not my main method of learning, since I’ll probably have more time off when I’m studying abroad in Singapore (though I should probably use that time to explore haha). I also want to expand my kanji knowledge so I can at least pick up meaning from the various signs, etc. across Singapore and SE Asia that use Chinese characters.
I guess I could keep using self-study to review previous levels and stay in vacation mode as I have been doing, and then either continue from lvl39 or reset only a couple levels while reviewing burned items (5200!!!) regularly. I want to keep at WaniKani and Japanese even after I visit, so I still want to set myself up for success in the future.
I definitely forgot a lot of burned items, so I’m just using self-study and vacation mode for now to try to dig myself out of this hole lol. I’ll see how long that lasts before I decide to reset I guess, thanks for your help!
My situation is a bit similar to yours, except I still reviewed daily but didn’t do any new lessons for 3 years ish (also stopped at level 31 similar to you). So I had a big burnt pile that I never revisited and probably forgot most of it.
When I got back on the horse, instead of resetting (because that would be a big blow to my motivation), I decided to just keep going with what I know and if there was a kanji that I just totally blanked on but was previously burnt, I would just revive it and treat is as a new item. I just kept doing this on my journey to level 60 adding “old” kanji as I went.
In addition to this, I started the Kaishi 1.5k deck (migrated from Core 2.3k) on Anki to cover the “basic” vocab/kanji I might have forgotten from the early levels of WaniKani (and common words WaniKani didn’t cover).
I’m not sure how much free time you have, but I was doing 15 new cards/lessons a day on Anki and WaniKani as I was “catching up” to my previous knowledge. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this right off the bat as its a rather large workload. In your case I might start the Kaishi1.5k for like a month or two while I just work my reviews down from WaniKani 'til it’s at a manageable spot.
However, depending on your Japanese level outside of WaniKani, you might be able to manage with choice D. It’s a lot more palatable than going ham with SRS everyday until your Japan trip. Depending on your motivation levels, that might even sour the trip compared to just straight up immersing in your favorite content.
Maybe I can help or practice Chinese with you , I am a native Chinese speaker, including both Mandarin and Cantonese. And I want to practice and improve my English, if you will
I was pretty much in the same position. I was level 42 I think and couldn’t touch Japanese for over 2 1/2 years. I had absolutely no idea what to do. I did look at the beginner levels and if I could still recall most of them, but in the end I noticed I would just guess my way through and then I had so many burned items on top, so I made a total reset back to 0.
However. I am not running out of time, so I can take the luxury to just go from the start again. It is way easier than I thought and after seeing most of the kanji and vocabulary again, so far it is an “aha, I know that one” moment. But if you are going to Japan, that would hinder you a lot just to get the very basic ones back. If I was in your shoes, I would look at the kanji from the different levels and see where you can still recall the most and then set back to that level. If you notice you still have forgotten more, you can always hop back a few more levels. Level 39 is already pretty high and I do remember the 30 levels were tough. I think I was doing pretty fine until 25 back then, this is where it got a bit brutal. Maybe you also notice that a certain level is more difficult than others. But also do not fret, even if you have not been studying for 2 years, somewhere in your head, those kanji are still floating around and you will remember them a lot easier than the first time. I can’t wait until I reach my good old friends, my leeches, again and I wonder if they will stay with me again this time.
Being in the same shoes as you (for the 2nd time already), here is what I did:
I went to flaming durtles (now smouldering durtles, but i didn’t know that at the time of coming back to wanikani) and started self studying level 1 radicals, then kanji. Then did the same with level 2, 3, 4 and 5 at which point I started to realize that i was starting to really struggle, especially with the readings.
Before resetting I wanted to give myself some time to think so the next day I set my self study session to levels 1-5 testing all items I had done wrong the day before. The next day I did that again.
Now I felt like I had a solid level 5 base again. So I reset to level 6.
There were 2 mistakes I had made in my previous routine. (1) ignoring/neglecting vocabulary for the sake of being fmdone faster and (2) sorting for items to be guru’d to show up first during reviews.
I now don’t proceed to the next level without having learned all the vocabulary. I see them now as a way to reinforce and make sense of kanji rather than stopping me from being fast. Also, I sort reviews by level so that the earlier level items will always be asked first. The ensures that I don’t skip them and proceed too fast.
Wish me luck that I stay motivated this time around! And good luck to you, too!
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. I agree that I should probably focus on learning (or relearning) through simply practice, both conversational and reading.
, I am a native Chinese speaker, including both Mandarin and Cantonese. And I want to practice and improve my English, if you will 