I always wondered what it would feel like to reach level 60, and I often thought I would never know. But now I know. There are so many kanji out there, and now I know 2000 of them. That’s a lot. Probably I have forgotten some, but regardless I am pretty satisfied.
I don’t like talking about my accomplishments, which is a really weird thing to dislike, but I figure it’s worth saying something on this particular occasion.
I bought a lifetime subscription to WaniKani at the beginning of 2018.
I reached level 20 around the beginning of 2021.
I started taking Japanese classes (again) in the middle of 2021.
In July 2022 I took the JLPT N2 and passed.
The day of my ascension to level 60 was Sunday, September 4, 2022.
What I’ll do from here onward
For a couple of weeks now I have been able to hit my target of reading Japanese novels and games for 3 hours every day. I’ll continue doing this because I enjoy it a lot. I’m also going to focus on writing and being active on my Japanese-language social media accounts, and making new friends.
I don’t really want WaniKani to end. There are many kanji and vocabulary words I come across that I want to learn using the WaniKani SRS UI, but there is no way to add new items. I keep a list of new kanji and vocab from Japanese media and I could easily make an Anki deck, but I do not like the Anki SRS feedback loop. I’d like to continue using the WaniKani style instead. As far as I know, no one has written an extension that adds lessons and reviews for user-supplied items.
I think that’s about all I have to say. I’m happy with the progress that I’ve made, and I hope to progress more and more. If you’d like to talk on Discord, you can add me by my ID eli#7102. Thanks for reading, and I wish you success and satisfaction in your studies.
If I understand correctly, you may be interested in this userscript. IIRC it permits free entry of more items into the regular queue, and you get quizzed on them like regular items.
Hey eli! Congratulations on this milestone! Welcome to the Lvl. 60 club, and good on you for passing the JLPT N2 this year! You put all that you’re learning in your language study to the test and you’re passing with flying colors!
As such, it is time to offer you some obligatory cake for your Lvl. 60 accomplishment:
You should check out Kitsun. It’s an SRS system that I like much better than Anki, as it’s somewhat like WaniKani that you have to type your answers in. They have a built-in dictionary (powered by Jisho), where you can look up a word and instantly add it to your own personal study deck. You can fully customize your SRS intervals, break out meaning/reading into separate review stacks, subscribe to other community made decks, etc. I would definitely check it out. They are also in their early stages of an iOS app, though I mainly use the browser interface. Check it out-- www.kitsun.io
Also…congratulations on the big achievement! I’m attempting my third reset of the WK grind after life got in the way. I’m not sure I plan to make it all the way to lvl 60…but that certainly would be nice.
If could ask…in retrospect–is there anything you would change in how you tackled your studies? Anything you studied out of order, that in hindsight, you would have reprioritized earlier or later? Just curious. N5 learner here…but sometimes I struggle with finding myself out of the standard order for learning things. I think that’s somewhat natural though…as until you learn enough, you are having to external things, just to understand your current things…so I find myself going on learning tangents for those external things. Months later I realize that I was only just getting ahead of myself, but sometimes it’s needed for general comprehension.
Also, great tip on staring a foreign language social media account. Once I’m further along I will definitely consider that. Cheers!
I can’t say whether this is good advice or not, but after I started consciously orienting my lessons and review schedule around the WaniKani system, I was able to level up quicker, more consistently and keep a longer streak than before. For instance, doing level-up reviews in the morning if they got added overnight, or scheduling some time in the afternoon or evening to do them if they unlock during the day.
All of the items in WK are important (okay, most of them), but if you need to keep a steady progression in order not to get discouraged, then you have to pay attention to the level-up radicals and kanji more than anything else.
