No progression past the radicals? What am I doing wrong?

[dragonryder]

Hi everyone,

I joined WaniKani about 5 days ago, using it on both my laptop and on my phone. I’m doing it as an adjunct to my Rocket Japanese course.

I was given a selections of radicals to memorize, then was given a review. All went well. I’ve had 26 radicals, and had review, after review, after review. No progression at all. Every time I get an alert on my phone to do a review, I do it. My reviews are coming back 100% (being tested on the 26 radicals). Last night, another review of them. 100%. This morning, another review of them. 100%.

Why isn’t it progressing past the 26 radicals? Every time I log in, all I see is “0 lessons / 0 reviews” and have to wait for another review of the radicals. The next review is in 2 hours, and I’ll bet it’s yet again another review of the same radicals. I don’t understand how much longer it will take to progress from the same radicals. At this point, I’m wondering if I’ll ever get to the actual kanji!

I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong. If someone could please enlighten me, I’d greatly appreciate it

Thanks so much!!

[Kazzeon]

Why Do I Need to Wait for Reviews?

TL;DR: You have to get the radicals right a few times before being able to continue.
It’s slow at first, but as you progress, you’re going to be managing a lot of reviews at the same time.

[YukiPhoenix]

Why isn’t it progressing past the 26 radicals?

Because they are not yet at Guru level. Once they are at guru level, after 4 successful reviews, you will unlock your first set of kanji.

[dragonryder]

Well, I saw that but I have no idea why the status bars show no progress. If I’ve learned 26 radicals, and I’ve been tested on them for several days, why would the “Level 1 Radicals Progression” show as zero out of 26? I’m a bit confused as to why the slider doesn’t show progress.

[AnnaDavis]

It only starts progressing once the words are at “guru” status. The bar won’t change while they’re at “apprentice” levels.

[dragonryder]

Ok, thank you very much everyone.

[Uiriam]

Slow beginning, but later is quite swift depending on how quick you open new lessons. All will come at its own time.

[dunlewy]

I am also doing Rocket Japanese with WK. How do you like it? I love it and also think WK is a great partner to Rocket.

[madtapa]

It’s sort of odd (imo) that they don’t show you what level of Apprentice or Guru items have reached. But! There are scripts for that, if you’re interested.

For showing the breakdowns inside of Apprentice and Guru, you can use [Userscript] WaniKani Dashboard SRS and Leech Breakdown or [Userscript] (Yet another) WK dashboard individual SRS totals. For seeing your radical and kanji (and vocab!) progress broken down by apprentice levels (instead of showing no progress until guru), there’s [Userscript] Dashboard Level Progress Detail. update to broken script or [Userscript] Dashboard Progress Plus. To see which level of Apprentice or Guru an item is reaching during reviews, there’s [Userscript] WaniKani Show Specific SRS Level in Reviews.

(For once you have more than one batch of items you’re working on, I’d also strongly recommend [Userscript]: WaniKani Ultimate Timeline for seeing upcoming reviews. This is perhaps the most agreed upon quality-of-life script there is.)

For more tips about using WaniKani (such as timing of lessons and reviews towards achieving your goals) and about some of the good scripts, you should check out jprspereira’s My Journey of 368 days (+ The Ultimate Guide for WK 📖 )!