I was going so well I didn’t need to restrict myself to the number of lessons recommended and still was getting around 93% of all reviews right. Today the performance lowered so much, my reviews from today dropped to something like 80% average (I think, this is from my mind), but I got a lot of accuracy from the past week and I’m still on 92%, comfortably in the learning zone. The problem is, when old stuff reappear, a lot of the times I just forget entirely and what would have gone to master drops to apprentice. This is happening so much that I think my memory is a lot better in recent periods than for long periods, I’m worried my brain might be kinda abnormal.
If you have some previous exposure to kanji, the first levels are definitely easier. It may be that you are passing the kanji and vocabulary you already knew.
Also, I sometimes just have a bad day when the kanji I’m reading don’t come to mind: it might be that I’m tired or that I’m distracted that day. If it’s a one day thing, that’s a strong possibility.
For me, to make things stick better, I usually write them down. You may need to do some extra repetition through speaking or writing. I also have reduced significantly the number of new items I learn every day: from 15, to 10, to 7, and now to 5. It will take me longer, of course, but I’d rather enjoy Wanikani while completing it!
Good luck!
this is absolutely correct. You just have a bad day or maybe you just need to review some of the kanji many times. What happen is normal. We all forget things often. Repitition is what it takes and that is why WK is so good.
Good luck as you study.
Normal. I’ve had cases where i drop to 80. Then some days after in 90s. The 7 day average is the correct meter.
I agree with the others, a low average happens from time to time, for example my average on Friday went as low as 70%, while I have a normal average now of 85%. This led me to investigate and saw I got a lot of Kanji leaches in apprentice 1. You also identified where the low percentage comes from, and I agree with the others that lowering your pace will assist learning these items.
I also want to stretch that making mistakes is part of the process. This is also why the learning zone stops above 95%, as you already knew everything what was asked otherwise.
I think one important thing to remember is the goal is learning the kanji, not maintaining X% accuracy on WaniKani. If the reviews indicated you knew those a little less than other ones, that just means you’ll spend more time with them.
Less than that, even. One’s goal here is (presumably) to be able to read Japanese. Memorising individual kanji with little rhyme and no context is an overlapping but very separate skill, making it even more important to not conflate WK performance.
Your brain is normal.
I used to think my path to learning a language would be linear. But it’s not. Learning involves forgetting. So the fact that you’re showing up and encountering things that you are forgetting is great. It means you’re learning. Reframe forgetting as a positive thing; it means the spaced repetition system is working, because it’s identifying exactly what you’ve forgotten and forcing you to study those items harder. It just… hurts our feelings. But really the point is to spend more time on the ones you forget, and less on the ones you can remember easily. It’s painful because it works.
Now it also could mean that you aren’t internalising the mnemonics properly so try this suggestion if you want: when you learn each meaning and reading, slow down and really FEEL the mnemonic. I.E. engage ALL your senses. E.G. for 花 from level 4. Your leader plants a flower with a spoon for the girl Hannah he has a crush on. How does it feel? The crunch of the dirt against the spoon, the weak spoon bending, dirt digging into his knees. His heart bursting for love for Hannah. How does it smell? The smell of the earth, the fragrance of the flowers, the same fragrance Hannah wears! How does it taste? He puts the spoon in his mouth and yuck! Dirt! Tastes terrrible but good for the flowers I guess… what does he see? He sees rich brown dirt crumbling… the flowers growing through, beautiful colours…
You get my drift. When you use all your senses like that, it takes more time, but you will probably remember that mnemonic forever. I think the ones that come easy don’t need so much effort and don’t need a detailed mnemonic. If you are forgetting things at guru or master level then it’s worth a try to use this to get them deeper into your memory.
I hope this is of use to either you or somebody who comes across this response.
Keep going, it’s a marathon! Japanese will take ages to learn, that’s just the way it is for most people, I hope you enjoy the journey.
I know I should be practicing reading normal texts too, and I was doing that, because I’m taking a course for learning japanese in general, and I should be learning grammar rules too at the same time I do WK lessons and reviews. But recently I’ve been having to study for admission in college, so now I temporarily have no time to do both, so I chose to continue on WK and suspended the regular course and reading full texts in japanese. I’ll come back to doing it, though.